


Near Death of a Salesman

by gianee



Series: Return to Cemetery Lane [1]
Category: Addams Family (TV 1964), Addams Family - All Media Types, The Munsters
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 20,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26844325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gianee/pseuds/gianee
Summary: An insurance salesman finds himself strongly reconsidering his career path after a very strange incident with a very strange family on cemetery lane.
Relationships: Gomez Addams/Morticia Addams, Herman Munster/Lily Munster, Lurch/Marilyn munster
Series: Return to Cemetery Lane [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123271
Comments: 34
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

_The insurance salesman was a broken man, crumpled in the wire chair. His career selling penny policies to lonely housewives was in tatters as were his nerves. He ruffled his waxed hair back and forward, anxiously muttering over the need to become an Alaskan long haul trucker or join the foreign legion.  
"What happened, buddy?" Spoke the concerned but more confused voice of George Laurie's manager.  
"We need to make a full report. We can't have a Pomeroy and Son's salesmen running screaming through the streets wearing the company pin! We have a reputation to uphold!"  
Mr. Laurie shrugged somewhat ashamed and flustered for the words. "You'd run too if you were there!" He protested.  
The manager sighed and sunk into the opposing swivel chair, he plucked a pen and flipped his notebook to a clear page before sighing and peering over his glasses. "Why don't you tell me all about it."_

It wasn't a good day for cold calling, It was sticky and hot. Less and less of the houses on Mr. Laurie's turf were occupied as more and more of the housewives were taking up employment. It was 1974 and Fuller brush men and Avon ladies alike were giving up and moving their trade into air conditioned malls while insurance men were left out to rot. Today not a single knock was answered.

The stress of being a door to door insurance salesman was getting to be too much for anyone. Mr Laurie had just heard that an acquaintance, Mr. Sanderson, an old silver haired silver tongued veteran salesman, had suffered a mild heart attack in a house on cemetery lane only a week ago. This was of course terrible news but meant that there was an extra few blocks to try his dwindling luck in.

Mr. Sanderson's area was very much like Mr. Laurie's. Same identical, smart white houses, running street after street, facing out from uniform gardens into into wide modern roads. Laurie knew the sort of people who bought these houses well; they were self-involved, materialistic, appearance-obsessed. Which made Laurie even more confused over the existence of one very strange house. Here in the middle of a normal, self-conscious, conservative suburb was the most unapologetically bizarre old wreck Laurie had ever seen. A huge, rambling, shingle and oak monstrosity, half buried under poison oak and hogweed. It domineered the block, it was a far too tall, fussy French style that looked ready to topple over. Surely abandoned, although Laurie was sure he could see a light at the old frail looking windows. It was odd that such a rickety old monstrosity should be allowed to stand in a neighbourhood watch area that condemned those who dared to mow their lawn stripes horizontally. He thought it was best to park next to the old house, there at least he'd remember where he parked. He was only 36, but this line of work was already weakening his mind. He looked up at the creaking wooden monolith, hoping it wouldn't fall on his car. He was sure all these old buildings had all been torn down when he was a kid, this one was surely very overdue the wrecking ball.

Immediately next to the strange old mansion was, from the outside, a perfectly ordinary house. A regular, desirable, split-level, white timber clad ranch with a steep gabled roof. It looked like a four or five bedroom with a built in garage, settled well back from the street nestled in behind generous pear and maple trees. Mr. Laurie gathered up his briefcase and straightened his tie and collar, striding confidently up the paved path, under the shadow of the strange neighbouring building. He knocked rhythmically and took a minute to stare preoccupied at his surroundings. The house was very smart from the sidewalk but as he came closer, there was something odd about it. What from a distance looked like a rambling rose scaling the clapper boards, up close was in fact poison ivy. The tiles on the porch were patterned in intricate mosaic beetles. Over the hedge he could see an odd old car sitting in the driveway, a dark green Rolls Royce Phantom he was sure. It looked like a later model from the 30's but it was still far too fussy and archaic to look at ease in such a sleek, modern car port. Glancing in the window, he noticed the dark curtains were closed, just as he was about the give up, the door finally swung opened.

_"There stood the most beautiful woman you could imagine. Like Jayne Mansfield, like Joi Lansing, like ...Marilyn Monroe!"  
His manager looked confused. "You ran away because she was pretty? Get a grip!"  
"No! Something wasn't right! It was 2:30, the curtains were closed, it was as if she'd just woken up!"  
"So what. Probably been shooting a night scene with Laurence Olivier."   
"I knew you wouldn't get it! The house was so dark. It was a regular house from the outside but the walls were covered in weird old wallpaper, the floor was bare, The lights weren't on - she was beautiful but ...There was just something not right!" _

Mr Laurie, launched into his robotic rehearsed salesman spiel, trying very hard not to seem distracted by the slightly odd house or his attraction to his host.  
"Why hello there Miss! My name is George Laurie from the Pomeroy and Son's Insurance company! I'm here to offer you a great deal on a fine selection of insurance packages for your home and your future. If you could spare a few minutes of your time, I'd be glad to share with you this wonderful opportunity for total priceless peace of mind for literally pennies!"  
Marilyn studied the visitor, smiling kindly but analytically. She concluded that she felt sorry for him standing in his tight winged collar and scratchy plaid three piece in such oppressive summer heat. After all, she knew it must be a miserable job having doors slammed in your face all day.  
"Of course" She said gently, graciously inviting him into the dark house.  
"Why thank you, Miss...?"

_"You were hoping for 'miss'?"  
"You bet I was. You'd think with a face like she had she'd be called something just as gorgeous. Something like "Miss. Holly" or "Miss. Lovelace" but no."_

"Mrs. Lurch." Marilyn corrected.


	2. Chapter 2

"Lovely name for a lovely lady!" Lied Mr. Laurie as he politely stepped into the house trying not to seem disappointed. "Why, what a beautiful home you have! would you like me to take off my shoes?"

"Oh how cultured but there's really no need! However, do keep your back to the walls."

Mr. Laurie laughed complacently, not sure if she was joking or what the joke even was.

He couldn't help but be distracted by the strange black-and-white photographs lining the room. An unfriendly, hatchet-faced little old woman in a straw boater hat in a gilded oval frame seemed to glare out at him. Another frame surrounded an old hook-nosed old man in some strange old world costume holding an odd looking but happy little boy on his lap. The wedding portrait of a ghoulish black and white haired woman in a tattered web-like wedding gown and a flat-headed groom made of unmatched parts was obviously from a film Mr Laurie resolved, although that didn't stop it from making him uncomfortable.

"That's my little cousin Eddie!" Marilyn caught his curiosity and pointed to a picture of the same strange child from the photograph of the old man, this time on his own grinning proudly revealing sharp little fangs as he posed with a baseball bat. A typical all american little league-er if it weren't for his odd dog-like features.  
"He's in college now - Salem state! We're all ever so proud especially Grandpa. Eddie would be so embarrassed if he knew that I've put this old picture up, but I like to remember him as this funny little boy."

_"Her cousin had fangs?" The manager stopped scribbling in his notepad and peeked up over his glasses doubtingly._   
_"And a widows peak, and come to think of it, pointy ears!"  
_ _T_ _he manager sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose where his glasses pinched him._   
_"God, Laurie, the poor kid was probably just teething! You've been watching far too many movies!"_

Mr. Laurie composed himself and returned to his salesman pitch. "I can tell family's important to you!"  
"Oh yes, the most important thing."  
"So it must be important to you, to know that your little cousin Eddie will be well looked after financially on the far off eventuality of your death."  
She turned, listening intently and cracked a perfect white smile, erupting into a delicate giggle. "I'm afraid my folks don't worry about those sorts of things! Do you have any sink hole insurance?"

Mr. Laurie was taken aback. Usually the emotional blackmail angle brought suburban housewives to the brink of tears, imagining their own deaths and their poor little family having thanksgiving without them. This woman on the other hand seamed tickled by the concept of her own mortality.  
"I don't think this is a sinkhole area, Mrs. Lurch." He weekly tried to argue.  
"Perhaps it's not an issue on any maps yet..." She hushed her voice " but Pugsley's tunnel system, though impressive for an 8 year old, wasn't the most structurally considered I'm afraid. That's how our neighbour poor Mr. Thompson lost his Impala - and would you believe his insurance refused to cover. It was so kind of Mr. Addams to replace it with a nice Packard twin six. So you'd imagine that my husband and myself are very keen that we'll be covered just in case the house should fall into the void."  
Mr. Laurie ruffled uncomfortably, he had no idea what she was talking about, he'd dread to think; but he was so desperate for a sale that he decided to carry on.  
"I-I'm sure we can figure out some …personalised home insurance - you seem like a gal with your head screwed on!"  
"Yes, Grandpa always uses carriage bolts." She riddled assuredly as she led him through to the sitting area.

"Please, make yourself at home." She gestured to a large but noticeably very old green leather chesterfield style couch. It seemed at odds with the open plan modern living-diner-kitchen, most of the furniture did. Strange plants sat in stranger plant pots about the floors and sideboards. The fireplace was modern and electric but hidden behind a hideous brass peacock fire guard. The floor to ceiling windows that backed onto the generous garden were veiled in huge heavy curtains, half drawn letting in a shaft of much needed light. It didn't seam to occur to this strange woman to turn on a lamp, not that there were many.  
In the dark he could just about make out a great lump taking pride of place on a round console table. As his eyes adjusted, he could make out what looked like a 4 foot long two headed turtle.  
"That's very... like nothing I've ever seen before, ma'am."  
"Oh yes, a precious wedding present from lovely Mr. and Mrs. Addams. My husband's employers really are the most wonderful people! I was a little homesick when I left my family in California, but they made me feel like one of their own. Tea?"  
"Very kind."  
"I have morning henbane or foxglove and nettle?"

_"Come on Laurie she was obviously joking!"_   
_"I thought that until I saw her cup froth green smoke like a flare."_   
_"A little halloween prank."_   
_"It's July!"_   
_"- Maybe it's a west coast thing then, she was probably one of those LA wackos."_   
_"She was a wacko alright."_

"Is your husband at work?" Mr. Laurie finally managed.  
"Why yes, I'm afraid. Most people are on a Tuesday afternoon, but if you'd like me to call him home it's really no trouble."  
"Oh, no ma'am that really does sound like a lot of trouble indeed."  
"He only works next door." She leaned and pulled a heavy swag back to reveal the huge neighbouring mansion, casting a great foreboding shadow over the house.  
"He's a demolition contractor?"  
Marilyn laughed. "Oh you death insurance men are funny! He's a butler."  
"Life insurance - s-sorry a butler? Sounds very European, I didn't know you got those here?"  
"Yes..." Marilyn dreamily rested a delicate hand to her chest as she gazed over to the neighbouring building. "Who'd have thought, a simple homely California girl like me would end up with someone so fascinating and continental?"   
"Well they say opposites attract!"  
"They certainly do, Mr. Laurie. They certainly do."


	3. Chapter 3

_Did you say there were underground tunnels on that block? For the love of god Laurie, please tell me you didn't sell miss american pie any home insurance!"_   
_"I tried not to."_

Mr. Laurie politely placed the cup on the strange ornate black lacquer coffee table. Marilyn sat across from him, petite and elegant in a very oversized wing-backed armchair, green smoke frothing around her face as she took delicate sips of her tea.

"So, about this -er- terrain issue. Is the city planning on filling in the tunnels?"  
"Well, I'd imagine the city would condemn the block if they knew." She said matter of factly. "Oh, maybe we could have some displacement coverage in case of compulsory purchase?" Mr. Laurie stared aghast, unable to respond.  
"Oh dear, I can see I've worried you! It isn't such an immediate concern." She rose gracefully to her kitten heels, sliding her tea onto the coffee table. She took a few dainty steps into the middle of the room and flipped an old Persian rug out of the way, revealing a huge, heavy wooden trap door. She lifted it as if mundanely opening an oven.  
"You're welcome to see the tunnels for yourself if you please?"  
"Oh, please, I, er, haven't brought my caving helmet." He said in a panic.  
"Oh of course, you wouldn't have, how silly of me. I'll show you the garden instead?" She dropped the trap door with an enormous thud that caused Laurie to spill his scalding tea on his lap, and walked to the wall of windows throwing the great velvet curtains to the side, nearly blinding Mr. Laurie with light. From the sofa he could see into the large lush green lawn, perfectly normal if it weren't for all the decorative stone vultures and headless rose bushes. He wasn't at all reassured and felt very unsure on his feet, but Marilyn only seemed vaguely annoyed by the chance of her home's total lack of structural integrity.

"Please excuse the garden, we haven't gotten around to weeding out all the awful petunias. You can see that the ground hasn't begun to cave too badly! It might never collapse!" She smiled, folding her arms as she gazed out.  
Mr Laurie stared out from the couch. The ground wasn't concave yet but that didn't mean it wasn't dangerous. Black iron benches and sun loungers under a broad parasol patterned in snakes added concerning weight to the precarious ground. Worryingly, nestled in a ceramic octopus was a little boy in a dark navy seersucker sun hat and cross backed dungarees patterned in pirate ships. He was splashing toy boats in a shallow ornamental pond, lost some high seas melodrama he acted to himself.

"Who's the little fella?" Laurie saw his chance to change the subject.  
"Why that's our little boy!"

_"You'd think a cute little kid would have a name like Tommy or Charlie or something but no..."_

"Our darling little Cain!" Marilyn opened the sliding door and the boy turned. He was white haired with a cupid face as pale as paper with strange dark eyes and eyebrows. She blew him a kiss and waved and he smiled and giggled but turned and snapped into an unsettling glare at Mr. Laurie.  
"Cain Lurch... what a, er, adorable name... he sure suits it."  
"Oh yes, and to think we were originally thinking 'Sam' after Grandpa, but then Mrs. Addams thought he might get teased." Laurie nodded and smiled in polite agreement, but couldn't hide his confusion.  
"This is Mr. Laurie, sweetheart, say hello." Marilyn sweetly cood.  
Baby Cain's thundery expression didn't change but he raised a little hand to give a clumsy wave.

_"You remember that movie Village of the Damned?"_   
_"Oh come on Laurie, blonde kids aren't aliens!"_   
_"Maybe not all of them, but this kid was something else."_

"Little guy likes boats, huh?"  
"He just loves shipwrecks! If only this awful sunshine would go away, he loves it when it rains because then he can play Lake Superior in the pond his daddy dug him. Uncle Herman even carved him a little Kamloops! How cute!"  
"Adorable." Lied Mr. Laurie as he stood up to stand next to Marilyn at the door, he gave a weak laugh and returned a wave at the little boy as he dunked his tiny boat under the water, enacting a dramatic squeal.

"You seem much too young and glamorous to have a son!" He schmoozed, falling back onto his charm offensive.  
"Mr. Laurie, I assure you I am much, much older than you are." She smiled cryptically folding her arms and stepping back from the salesman. "Besides, he's still only a baby. He's turning three on Thursday."  
"Three? He looks about six!"  
"He looks just like his daddy, which reminds me, before you make a quote, perhaps you should talk to my husband. He knows all about subterranean structures; vaults, chambers, catacombs, that sort of thing. He really knows more about the situation than anyone else, besides Pugsley of course."  
"Your husband sounds like a very well-read man, Mrs. Lurch."  
"Yes he is, I'm a very lucky girl."  
"I'm sure he's the lucky one!" He said, a little too improperly, standing a little too close.

Suddenly Mr. Laurie felt a huge heavy hand fall out of total nothingness and thud on his right shoulder. He jumped and turned in fright only to be faced with the top 5 buttons of a pin tucked shirt, a bow tie and black wool dinner jacket. He was sure he never heard anyone come in, but somehow this huge man had manifested from nothing behind him. There was no mistaking who this was. He slowly craned his neck until he could see where little Cain had inherited his distinctive demeanour.

_"This guy was a monster, a real monster! he must have been 7 feet tall and 250 pounds, with a face like death. If she had told me he was doing night shifts as the grim reaper I'd have believed her. Tell me how something like that could creep out of hell into a room unheard?"_   
_"Because you were so distracted by his heavenly little wife?"_   
_Mr Laurie slumped and stared off into space dejected. "No kidding. How does a guy like that get a gal like that?"_   
_"7 feet tall? Come on Laurie use your imagination." Laurie shook his head almost managing a laugh as the manager gave a jovial chuckle. "I know what happened now, he caught you coming onto his hot wife and he kicked your skinny_ _ass down the block?"_   
_"If only it were that simple, at least then people would believe me..."_

"Darling!" Marilyn purred. "You read my mind! This is Mr. Laurie, he's come to offer us some sinkhole insurance!"  
Mr. Laurie erupted into nervous laughter as he gathered up enough nerve to shake Lurch's hand.  
"Ah ha, I don't know about that! Hey, you've got it all haven't you fella, beautiful wife, beautiful house, beautiful baby no wonder you've got a smile on your face!" He joked, it didn't land, he was shaking Lurch's hand furiously with adrenaline. Lurch grumbled his agreement, sharing a somewhat concerned glance with his wife over the state of the visitor. Laurie continued to ramble in a blind panic, backing away towards the front door.  
"You know I think you folks have got all the insurance you need, after all you've got each other. I really don't think I've got anything that can better your lives, this is the dream right here! So I'll just say it was lovely meeting you all but-"  
"Wait." Commanded Lurch, Mr. Laurie froze stiff, a fake smile plastered across his face. Lurch turned to Marilyn who nodded with a smile. "We'll take it."  
"Oh now hang on! I'd need to talk to my boss about that! How about we talk about some general life insurance?"  
"Bit late for that." Lurch said bleakly. Mr. Laurie gulped.

_"Well obviously he meant they already had life insurance since they owned the house and had a kid! You know, like folk normally do!"  
"There was nothing normal about these people! You never saw this guy, he was like Boris Karloff on steroids!"  
"You're just jealous."  
"Of course I am, but that doesn't change the fact that this guy was definitely dead!"  
The manager rubbed his face and groaned. Sure that his colleague had finally cracked.  
"Come on." He tried to reason. "So the fella was a bit weird that doesn't mean he was the walking dead! Think about it! He was married with a house in the suburbs. He was employed so he must have a social security number, you said there was a car on the drive so he must have had a licence. They were going to buy insurance so they must have a bank account. These things demand birth certificates, marriage certificates, diplomas, passports, eye tests, medicals, you know - proof that you're not dead! Do you think a dead man can wait in line at the DMV? Or hold down a job? If the kid looked like him surely that means that was just how he was? Poor fella probably just had a condition. An anaemic ex-circus giant maybe. Snap out of it, Laurie."  
"His job proved nothing, I met his boss and he was an even creepier spook than him! Gomez Addams was his name, I could see that guy employing dead people just to avoid paying tax." _


	4. Chapter 4

Laurie had resolved that that was the last straw. He grabbed his suitcase and turned on his feet, the strange couple looked on baffled, Lurch's arm around his wife's dainty shoulder. He took two sprinting strides for freedom before suddenly finding himself caught in a strange sentient cloud of smoke.

"Oh I'm sorry! I didn't know you had company! Gomez Addams here!" The strange bug eyed man introduced himself with a brisk friendly but deathly tight handshake and a rough pat on the back that knocked the wind out of the salesman and sent him flying back into the middle of the living-room. He was maniacal, almost rattling with excitement in his dark pin stripe suit. He wore a dark moustache and waxed hair from another era. accessorising with a silver squid on his broad black tie and a proud, garish signet wedding band of gold and jet. He stared at Mr. Laurie with the mad eyes of a big grinning cat, chewing a potent cigar and puffing great plumes like a diesel truck.

"Mr. Addams! This is Mr. Laurie." Marilyn announced delighted at her company. "We've become such friends, he's going to sell us some sinkhole insurance!"   
Laurie tried to protest but was briskly interrupted with another thud on the back.  
"Well! that's wonderful! We could do with some sinkhole insurance ourselves as a matter of fact! I'll take a million dollar policy - do you take cash?"  
"Oh now hold on -"  
"I can wire it over to your office if you like - but only in Burmese rupees!"  
"Please I -"  
"I must say it's very exciting to have an insurance man calling! Apart from that dizzy fellow who dropped in last week, we haven't seen one in years! Not since the Bruno incident. You'll stay for lunch!" Announced Gomez pointing to the air triumphantly and cuffing a strong stripy arm around a shell-shocked Laurie's shoulders. It wasn't an invitation but an inescapable fact. He swung his other arm around Marilyn with a delighted laugh. 

"Isn't she a wonderful lady, Mr. Laurie? I've known Lurch for an eternity and I've never seen him so happy!" He gestured to Lurch cigar in hand, he didn't look happy, though with the wife he had Laurie couldn't imagine how he couldn't be.   
"Look how beautiful she's made this little honeymoon cottage! The tenants who lived here before, the Peterson's - though very nice, nearly ruined this place with avocado shag carpeting. Marilyn here has truly made this house a home!" Gomez pulled the two out of the house through the sliding doors, hopping into the garden, silently followed by Lurch.   
Suddenly he released Laurie and Marilyn to scoop up Cain who beamed and held his little arms outstretched at the sight of Gomez.  
"And if it wasn't for her we wouldn't have this little devil! Children make life worth living! Don't you agree Mr. Laurie?" Cain giggled delighted as Gomez tossed him in the air and caught him with a booming laugh. Marilyn smiled and fondly stroked Cain's cheek before they walked ahead to the gate connecting to the garden of the great looming mansion. Laurie saw his chance to try another escape but as he turned to flee he nearly concussed himself on eerily solid Lurch who promptly grabbed his shoulders and turned him back around, frog marching him to a luncheon he'd never forget.


	5. Chapter 5

Mr. Laurie sat stiffly, awkwardly low on the broken but still ornate dining chair, feeling very trapped at the large round dining table. A strange, half lit chandelier hung low and a spray of candles and dried flowers sat centred in a threadbare table cloth. If he thought he felt unsure in the almost-normal house, he felt as he was about to fall through the floor in this old fossil. Every time he moved the broken chair creaked against the old floorboards. The antique wallpaper was pealing, the paint was cracked, the walls were bowing for sure. The flaking plaster above the old lead window panes was a definite indication that the house was giving way to uncertain foundations.  
Lurch had just presented him with a plate of something he'd rather not think about. Some sort of old fashioned goulash, although what exactly it involved he couldn't guess.

Gomez sat across from him and erupted into compliments, somehow puffing at his cigar and eating at the same time. To Laurie's right sat Marilyn, totally comfortable and content as she charmingly smiled and chatted and ate the strange goulash as if it were cream of tomato. Cain was wearing a stripy bib and perched on a tucked in chair atop a pile of cushions. He carefully concentrated on mastering a spoon, frequently looking to his mother for a validating smile, occasionally casting Laurie his father's unnerving glare.

Also joined at the dining table were three new people. A hideous, bald, ancient toby jug in a grubby fur and brown suede coat wolfed down his lunch, dipping a prickly pear like a slice of bread. He was an uncle of some kind, called Fester apparently. Laurie sincerely hoped this was a nickname. The salesman tried to ignore him as Fester eyed him curiously and dis-trustingly.  
Next to the old uncle was a waifish, sanguine black eyed child of fifteen or sixteen that Gomez had introduced as his darling daughter, Wednesday. She was dressed in a large, loose, tent-like, bell sleeved dark smocked dress and cable knitted socks, tapping her laced boots under the table. Her long black hair hung around her pale face in wavy crimps and she vacantly sipped her lunch as she read a great dusty tomb of a book. She was researching the spread of cholera in the old west she monotonously explained to Laurie.  
To the other side of Gomez was his beautiful but just as strange wife, Morticia. She was just as gorgeous as Marilyn in a completely odd and fascinating way and obviously outranked her husband in domestic hierarchy. She had long straight black hair and was dressed in a skin tight black full length dress. In contrast to her husband she was eerily still and moved slow and carefully like a preying mantis. Although they themselves looked nearly dead their marriage was very much alive with carnal vigour. Laurie didn't know where to look when Morticia pronounced "bon apatite!" and her husband pounced on her with wet kisses as if she were lunch. As much as she was intimidating, she was remarkably pleasant and generous. In the short time he has been a guest in the house she had already offered him three pots of tea and a taxidermy swordfish.

Eventually Lurch reappeared from the dark and took the seat between Morticia and his son. Fondly, gently tussling the little boy's white hair with a grunt as he sat down. He didn't eat though, instead he carefully watched the baby's table manners, growing noticeably tense as Cain lifted a fragile cut glass tumbler to his face to drink.

"Relax Lurch!" Gomez boomed. "He won't drop it! The little fellow's really very tidy for a two year old!"  
"Nearly three." Stated Lurch.  
"Mr. Laurie, how many toddlers do you know that can eat ardvark goulash so neatly? Or play Les Cyclopes on the harpsichord?"

_"I think that was another joke." Said the manager, now slacking his tie and nursing a headache trying to figure out how to report back to senior management that another salesman had lost the plot._  
_Laurie shook his head gravely. "He played before lunch and he really didn't spill a thing, it was bizarre. He was as neat as an English duchess."_

"Don't forget an accomplished actor, darling." Interjected Morticia, laying a hand on her husband's forearm. "He played a wonderful Lindbergh's baby in Wednesday's high school play that she wrote and directed last Christmas!"  
"It was a contemporary operetta in three parts, mother." Sulked the teenager from under a curtain of hair.  
"That's -er- very impressive, Wednesday." Laurie fumbled, the family beamed, proud and agreeing. "D-Did you write the music yourself?"  
Wednesday nodded. "Mostly, but aunt Ophelia helped. She ran off to Ireland and joined the Sister's of Mercy convent so she can't be here in person."  
"They don't let her out since the incident with Bishop Murphy." Sighed Fester shaking his head.  
"but she sent me suggestions through the computer."  
"You have a Computer? In your house?"  
"Whizzo!" Gomez cried with a booming laugh. "A little project Pugsley and I worked on when he was a lad! It'll be needing upgraded soon - you can connect television screens to them now! Perhaps a job for when the boy returns from his year travelling in the artic tundra!"  
"Pugsley? The boy who dug all the tunnels? He's your son?" Laurie wasn't surprised.  
"Our eldest. He's 18 now." Morticia lamented bitter-sweetly. Elegantly reaching across the table to hold the toddler's hand. "How they grow like toadstools..."   
"Indeed, Mr Laurie, he's the devil that caused all this trouble!" Gomez chuckled fondly, apparently only amused by his son's extensive property damage.

Uncle Fester ruffled uncomfortably and chided his nephew in a not very discreet hush. "You shouldn't have told that insurance fella about the tunnels! that's where they get ya! Jack up the premiums, hide loopholes in the fine print. I used to be an insurance man myself y'know! I know all the tricks!"  
"Fester, it's fraud if you don't tell them everything." Marilyn gently asserted.  
"What's wrong with a little fraud?" Fester answered.  
"He's got a point." Concurred Gomez. "Play them at their own game! Incidentally, Mr Laurie, what company do you work for? I'd better check I don't own it before we go playing it at it's own game!"  
"Pomeroy and Sons, Don't worry Mr. Addams, Mr. Pomeroy definitely owns it."

A big devious grin spread across Gomez's face as he watched his daughter sink further into her chair in a cross-armed sulk. "Pomeroy? Really? That's very interesting! We know the Pomeroys, especially Wednesday!"  
"You're so embarrassing, father!" She almost disappeared under the table, white face glowing red.  
"You see, Mr. Laurie, young Harold Pomoroy has always held a candle for Wednesday." Morticia explained.  
"Yeah, ever since he was 8 and she socked him in the eye at his own birthday party!" Fester added with more than a little pride.  
Marilyn joined in the joke. "They really are the sweetest little pair!" She softly teased.  
"We are not a pair! I'm not babysitting Cain anymore if you tell people he's my boyfriend!" Wednesday jumped up outraged, the family giggled. She looked desperately to Laurie for an ally.  
"He's such a weirdo! He plays football and drives a Javelin!"  
"Let's not judge silly teenage whims! The boy's from a fine linage, darling! He's the great, great grandson of Erwin Pomeroy the hanging judge, you know!" Gomez argued.  
"Well he's a disappointment to his family then!"

_A wash of panic crossed the manager's face. "Hold on there Laurie, I played golf with the boss a few weeks back and he said he was worried about Harold being infatuated with some strange kooky girl - that sounds like her!"_  
_"Tell the boss not to worry. All this kid cares about is avant guarde ballet and reading about horrible terminal illnesses. Unless Harold has tuberculosis she wouldn't be interested."_  
_The manager chuckled, relieved that he had some good news to bring back to the boss. "Harold seems like a nice, popular, regular kid - surely if he's got such a crush on their daughter, they can't be that bad!"_  
_"The boss really should worry about Harold; there are that bad."_


	6. Chapter 6

_"So how long were you there?"_   
_"I have no idea. I thought they were going to keep me as a pet."_

Laurie had been wrangled through to the sitting room by Lurch after Gomez interpreted his vain escape attempt as a desire to retire from the table. He was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and pulled through a maze of dark corridors, before being shoved into a collapsed armchair (that Morticia named the good chair - Laurie wasn't sure if she was joking or not).

This room was like a bad fever dream, there was taxidermy mounted on totem poles, jade statues and medieval portraits with eyes that seemed to blink. There was no one matching settee suite but a bizarre ensemble of junkshop furniture - a throne, a wicker peacock chair, a tete-a-tete, a park bench. The family settled into their own peculiar perches, apart from Lurch and Marilyn who nestled together at a great garish white and gold harpsichord, playing a four handed composition. Cain had climbed onto Laurie's knee adding to the sense of entrapment. He was oddly heavy as he sat lovingly babbling to his toy lake monster.

_"See there, Laurie, you're being unfair! That was cute of the kid to sit on your knee. They’re obviously just a nice continental family!"_  
 _"That kid sat on my knee to intimidate me! He had my number, and he wasn't letting me get away!"_  
The manager laughed _"Intimidated by a two year old!"_  
 _"You'd be too if you'd seen this two year old!"_

"How sweet!" Morticia beamed. "He's so affable, just like his dear father!" Laurie was sure that they had now forgotten about the insurance, and they were now treating him like an old calling friend. They certainly didn't pick up on his discomfort as he smiled nervously at the odd family. Morticia was pouring strange frothing tea with a two headed teapot and Uncle fester was eating purple coloured cookies that crunched like cartilage. Gomez eyed his wife chewing his cigar, just waiting for the next excuse to ravage her - French, Yiddish or bullfrog, he didn't seem to mind. Wednesday sat in a slump cross legged on the floor, buried in her book, still reeling from the embarrassment of lunch.

Laurie summoned up some phoney mall-Santa cheer and gave a chuckle. "He sure is! just like your pa, huh, little guy!" He grimaced through gritted teeth. The toddler glared and his toy monster snapped its wooden jaws. Suddenly an ingeniously simple solution came to mind.  
"Can I use your bathroom?"  
"Of Course!" Gomez exclaimed, "It's up the stairs, to your right, go through the green door on your left - not the brown door whatever you do! Then go up the ladder, go to the end of that corridor, through the red curtains, hang a left, climb down the spiral staircase, take the corridor to your right, it'll be the fourth door along, the one with the squid painted on it, you can't miss it!"   
Laurie nodded, dazed. He had hoped it would just be next to the front door, somewhere accessible where he could easily escape from. None the less, he could find a window and climb down a drain if it came to it. He tried to lift Cain off his lap but the combination of the weight of the not-so-little boy and the collapsing chair only made him sink further. Finally, Wednesday came to his rescue, picking Cain up and placing him on a very strange wooden rocking unicorn where he beamed and whooped a soft 'whee'.

Laurie uncrumpled himself from the chair somehow, struggling to his feet. To his horror, Lurch kissed Marilyn's forehead as she played and rose from the harpsichord, watching Laurie with a glassy, unsettling glare. Laurie threw him and uncomfortable smile and tried to hurry up the stairs, completely forgetting the directions in the panic, hoping Lurch wasn't following him.

Lurch was following him.

Laurie turned on the unlit landing and shrieked at the seven-foot figure 5 paces behind. He turned and picked up into a flustered jog, sure that he was after him for coming on to his wife. Laurie was sure he was going to tie him up like a pretzel, cut his ears off and gift them to his wife in a bracelet box. He skidded round a corner, trying the door on the end of the corridor, it was locked. He glanced behind him - Lurch wasn't there.

Cautiously Laurie creeped back to the end and peered around the corner where he came. There was no one, Laurie held his breath but all he heard was the distant rumble of the group downstairs, the harpsichord, the baby's cheers, the screeching voice of Fester. Just as he breathed a sigh of relief a now familiar huge heavy hand fell on his right shoulder.

It was all too much. The salesman's knees gave out and he hit the floor in a thud.


	7. Chapter 7

_"You fainted?" The manager laughed._  
_Laurie slacked his tie in agitation. "I don't know what happened but that big monster came out of nowhere! Literally nowhere! Next thing I knew I was in some attic room being slapped in the face by some strange woman."_  
_"Strange woman? Stranger than the other two?"_  
_"You bet. The strangest woman I think I've ever seen."_

"Mr. Laurie?... Mr. Laurie?" Each gentle call came with a slap on Laurie's drowsy face. "He just passed out for no reason? Poor man must have something wrong with him! Wake up Mr. Laurie!"  
He finally opened his eyes in a blur with a groan. The dark room was spinning in a dust cloud. Sitting besides him on the rickety old chaise was a woman so pale she was pretty much green. She was grimly attractive in a deranged sort of way, framed in impractically long black and white hair. She wore a lavender lace gown belted with black straps and makeup that Anna Pavlova would say was too much. He suddenly remembered the portrait on Marilyn's wall of the couple he assumed were from a movie and realised, the bride was for real; he sincerely hoped the groom wasn't.

"Who are you?!" Laurie asked in a panic, jumping up and shuffling back on the cushions.  
"Why I'm Lily Munster, How do you do? I believe you've met my niece Marilyn." She explained with a gentle smile. She looked nothing like Marilyn, Laurie thought, but he nervously took her outreached cold, clawed hand to greet her.  
"Really? are you a blood relative?"  
"What an interesting question, to an extent, I suppose, it depends what you mean by blood." She replied with some though. "Are you feeling quite alright now Mr. Laurie?"  
"How do you know my name?"  
She laughed as if he was joking. "Why my nephew-in-law told me!"

Laurie had wondered who Lily was talking to in the apparently empty room until the butler stepped out of the shadows, looming menacingly over Laurie in the chaise. Now knowing Lurch, he shouldn't have been so surprised. The salesman erupted into panic again raising his palms to beg.  
"Look buddy, I - I didn't mean to offend you if I did, your wife's very beautiful and I'm sorry if I got carried away and overstepped the mark but please don't break my legs, I've got four little kids and alimony to pay and I really need to work, I can't afford any hospital bills just please let me go - "  
The butler furrowed his brow. "I thought you might get lost." He answered slowly and monotonously, impossibly deep.  
Laurie just stared, coming down from his frenzy, his hands lowering. The butler's frozen face flitted an expression of sad self-consciousness, he was possibly used to being seen as aggressive but still stung by the assumption.  
"Big house - confusing. I thought I'd show you the way."  
"That's... very kind. Thank you..." Laurie still wasn't sure what to make of Lurch. Whether he was an undead thug or a regular guy in a big scary body, Laurie couldn't decide. Why he felt the need to silently stalk him through the halls just to show him the way to the bathroom was anyone's guess.

"Hasn't Marilyn done well, finding such a kind, thoughtful man!" Lily beamed at Lurch, who retuned a stiff twitch of the lip and a bow of the head.  
"You know, he arranged for all of us to fly over to visit her! But it's a surprise!"  
"Surprise?" Laurie echoed weakly, he had had more than enough surprises for one day.  
"Yes! For little Cain's birthday party. She doesn't know a thing!" Lily giggled. "Actually... We were rather hoping you could help us with the surprise?"  
"Oh, no, I really must get going-"  
"Nonsense, Mr. Laurie! The least we can do is have you at dinner this evening, after all, it was so kind of you to sell my niece such comprehensive sinkhole insurance!"  
Laurie began to panic again. "I don't remember selling your niece anything!"  
"Well of course she hasn't had the chance to sign yet, but she'll be able to do that before dinner!"  
"I really need to go!"  
"Oh no, you haven't heard the plan yet! So we're all going to set up the party in the dining room, and we need you to keep her distracted until we're all ready to shout surprise. You could go over insurance details in the library with her, and Wednesday will signal with her piccolo for when you can bring her through!" Lily rambled excitedly, Laurie didn't share her enthusiasm.  
"I can't."  
"You will." Lurch asserted and Laurie shrunk, nodding nervously.

Suddenly, they all looked in the direction of the door at the sound of delicate footsteps on the landing.  
"Darling?" Marilyn called, obviously looking for her husband. Lily swept herself up in a flurry of violet silk and grabbed Laurie out of his chaise with formidable strength, shoving him into a decrepit old wardrobe before he could process what was going on. The old wooden doors slammed on him, as he looked through a split in the damp wood, it was apparent that Lily had disappeared into thin air. He hunkered down and kept still, not sure why he was going along with such a waste of time, but anxious not to get on Lurch's bad side. He watched the butler through the gap.

"There you are! Did you find Mr. Laurie?" She laid her hand on his chest, lovingly fidgeting with his lapel and straightening his bow tie. Lurch shuffled for words. She finished her thought, "Never mind, I'm sure he'll fall down one of Fester's chutes and slide back into the living room eventually. Wondering guests often do."  
Lurch grumbled.  
She took a breath and took his large hand. "Actually, I'm glad we're alone. We need to talk." She bit her painted lip. Laurie hoped she was asking for a divorce, that didn't seem likely as she looped her pretty arms around his shoulders and pulled the massive man down to her level with ease, whispering something in his ear. Something that delighted him as Laurie watched in curiosity, witnessing a genuine white smile from the grim butler.

_"I don't want to know what those creeps were plotting, they were probably going to have me for dinner from the look of his face! I knew I needed to get out of there fast!"_  
_"So why didn't you?"_  
_"Well I was trying! And I did eventually didn't I?"_  
_"Houdini eat your heart out."_


	8. Chapter 8

Laurie sat head in hands, crumped in the bottom of the great dusty wardrobe like an unloved winter coat. Lurch and Marilyn had left about five minutes ago although it could have been longer, it was hard to keep track of time when buried in a molehill of musty slippers. He wondered if Lily was just a figment of his imagination, he wondered if this was his mind finally splitting from his 20 years wasted as a salesman. He took a deep breath of stale air and pushed the doors open, reluctantly crawling into the empty room. He wondered if he would ever find his way out and if anyone would wonder where he was. This wasn't the first time his pursuit of attractive housewife clientele had gotten him into hot water. He didn't have to worry about being home for dinner since his wife left.

If it wasn't for the distant chirping tune of a shrill piccolo and rattling castanets two or three floors below, he would be sure the house was abandoned. The summer light beamed in through threadbare net curtains on the long attic corridor as he passed through a thick film of dust and hungry silk moths, not sure where he was going. He climbed down ladders, passed through numerous curtains, ducked through half-doors, and hopped down crooked steps. He meandered through winding corridors for what seemed like an eternity and wondered into various strange and decadent rooms. One door led to an old nursery, another to an ice-cold meat store. A bolt and lock barn opened on a rumpus room - one that wouldn't look out of place in the tower of London with various torture devices taking pride of place like they were as inconspicuous as a billiards table. To Laurie, this was definite proof that he was a dead man. He slammed the door and ran, determined that that was the final straw. Finally, at the end of a dark hall, stood a grand, ornate mahogany and glass panelled door. Sure that this must be an exit to a balcony, he flung himself through it without a moment’s hesitation.

Instead of the embrace of sun, he plunged into black and fell into a bric-a-brac of metal buckets, mops and bottles, clattering into a heap on the cold floor. It was a broom cupboard. Worse still the commotion awoke a strange sleeping vermin. The unmistakable squeal of a rudely awakened bat sent Laurie leaping to his feet and jumping straight back out of the grand door. The salesman stood spread eagle holding it closed, frozen with panic, convinced he was just one more fright away from joining Mr. Sanderson on the cardiac ward.

The door, to Laurie's terror, began to rattle. Someone was trying the handle from the other side. He collapsed again; except this time, he wasn't so fortunate to pass out. Instead he cowered and whimpered in a terrified huddle.

The door unlatched and creaked slowly open. After a second, a strange prehistoric fossil poked his head out. He was the old man from the pictures in the other house, except instead of proudly grinning, he looked harassed and jet lag. He rubbed his almost-purple leathery face and grumbled.  
"What's the big idea, fella?" He moaned in a distinct Brooklyn accent. "Can't an old corpse get some shut eye around here? I've just flown all the way from California - you try doing that at my age! My wings ain't what they used to be y'know!"  
"I - I'm sorry! I - I'm trying to find my way out!"  
"You don't wanna go out there buddy, it's still sunny out!" The old man stepped into the half-light, he was dressed in a purple and black striped night gown and stretched out a clawed wrinkled hand to help Laurie up. He yanked the salesman to his feet like he weighed nothing and dusted him down. He held on to Laurie's hand with vicious grip and shook it. "Name's Sam Dracula! and you are?"

_ "Dracula?" The Manager ruffled for an explanation. "You must have misheard. Must be some kind of Eastern European name."  _   
_ "Oh no, this guy was all Brooklynite!"  _  
_ "That explains why he was happy to sleep in a broom closet." _

"I - I need to go!"  
"Well Mr. Needtogo if you insist! Just head up those stairs and you'll be back in the living room! But trust me, you'll be sorry when you end up shrivelled up from the sun! I had a cousin who went out in the summer sun once - sizzled up like the Hindenburg! We never liked him at family get togethers after that; he always smelled like beef jerky." He waggled a long taloned finger and chuckled. "Well it's been nice chatting, but I need to powernap before supper. It's my great-grandson's birthday this week and I'm planning a big surprise tonight!" The door seemed to creak back open on its own and before Laurie could think, the old man was gone.

_ “Was he right? Did you get back to the living room?”  
Laurie sighed and slumped. “Sure he was, but it didn’t make any sense. I was so sure I was still in the upper floors, the house was like a Dali painting.”  
“I don’t think you’re holding your morning scotch like you used to!” The manager joked, Laurie didn’t laugh. The salesman stared dejected as he mulled over the strange house, still lost in the maze of hallways in his mind, trying to figure out how he had gotten so lost. _

"There you are Mr. Laurie!" Morticia pronounced, gazing up over her shamisen, not a bit concerned by the battered visitor, gasping for air, and crawling on the rug. Marilyn sat across from Morticia, Cain curled up in her arms, humming as his mother lovingly rocked him to the sway of Morticia's odd music. Gomez ever clouded in smoke, was cloaked in a black brocade kamishimo, slashing a vicious blade at his youngest child, who blocked his blows effortlessly with a sabre of her own. Uncle Fester watched excitedly, wearing a referee's headband and kept some sort of tally on a black chalkboard. Wednesday was winning. Lurch was likely in the kitchen preparing dinner, Laurie hoped he’d stay there.

"Did you find the bathroom?" Marilyn politely asked. He didn't answer, instead he scrambled to his feet and bolted. He ran past the women and ducked under the sword fight in mid-sweep, losing the tail of his tie as Wednesday accidentally slashed it off. He barely noticed his close shave as he sprinted on for the front door. Freedom in sight. He leapt up the three steps to the entrance vestibule, barely noticing the roar of the taxidermy polar bear rug beneath his feet. 

Just as the final stride for freedom was in reach, he suddenly ricocheted off the butler like he was made of mahogany and clattered backwards down the steps, rolling, and landing on his back.

Lurch groaned and shook his head. "Oh dear." Morticia said plainly and continued to play. Lurch stepped down and took the salesman by the scruff of the neck like a puppy, effortlessly lifting to his feet and dusting him down with feather duster.  
"Insurance." The butler commanded. Laurie wriggled free and stumbled back into the 'good' chair in defeat.

"Oh yes! I nearly forgot!" Marilyn stood up and walked towards Laurie, Cain on her hip, glaring.  
Aha!" Gomez flung his sword to his butler who caught it without looking and placed it in the umbrella stand behind the door. "We can go to the library!" He snatched Mr. Laurie back up out of the chair, who stumbled limply under the eccentric’s kimono sleeve. Marilyn handed her son to her husband who held the child in one huge hand like a precious sack of sugar and disappeared back into the complex of corridors. Marilyn looped her arm around Laurie's; a couple of hours ago he would have been thrilled by the contact, now he just dreaded where he was going to be dragged next. 


	9. Chapter 9

"I told you, you shouldn't trust that fella!" Accused the old uncle, making apparent his disregard that Mr. Laurie was sat at the same desk in the same snug office. He had insisted on coming along with Marilyn and Gomez to keep an eye on the salesman, apparently savvy to the 'tricks of the trade'. "Insurance men are the worst of the worst!"  
"You used to be an insurance salesman." Gomez said plainly through a typical plume of smoke, maniacal smile twitching under his moustache.  
"Well, that's what I mean!" He screeched. "You kids need someone here who's in the know!" He tapped his pickled-egg of a head, sounding a concerningly hollow noise.  
Marilyn pursed her lips and tutted. "That's rather impolite, Fester." She seemed to be the only one in the room with any social sense, sitting next to Laurie as she delicately read through his catch-all policies.  
"Well, it's true! Mr. Laurie doesn't mind, do you Mr. Laurie? That's how folks are on the east coast. Straight to the point! Sure, Mr Laurie?"  
"Sure. In fact you're right on the money, Mr. Frump. I'm a charlatan, I'm a cad. I'm as phoney as a three dollar bill. I'll only tell you lies and rip you off!" Laurie glibly ranted, seeing another chance to try and escape. He tried to scoop up his paperwork but Gomez snatched it back with a grin. Marilyn simply giggled at what she assumed was light hearted banter.  
"This one looks like a fine policy, Mr. Laurie!" Gomez announced studying the favoured leaflet. "Yes.. all you need to do is add on a blanket Floridian sinkhole policy and that'll suit us fine. Do you agree, Mrs. Lurch?"  
Marilyn smiled and took the paper from Gomez. "I do agree, Mr. Addams" She beamed, "Well that's perfect - we'll take this one!"

_ "They only heard what they wanted to hear, I tried everything. You gotta believe me I tried everything! I tried being crass and impolite, I tried quoting silly money. I tried pretending not to know what they were talking about. I tried climbing out of windows, I tried hiding in closets, I tried faking a heart attack! They owned me by that point and they weren't going to let me get away until I sold them that insurance."  _   
_ The colour ran out of the manager's plump face, he gripped his thick tortoiseshell glasses. "Please Laurie, You didn't..." _  
_ "I had to." _

"Fine." Laurie whimpered, crumpling. Gomez leapt up in victory, hopping onto his great marble desk and looming cross-legged over a defeated Laurie. "Wonderful!" He cried, whipping an ostrich feather quill from the inner pocket of his suit jacket. "Not a minute to loose! It's rather late in the day to be burdening ourselves with the drudgery of home ownership! Which reminds me, where were you this morning?" He asked Marilyn. "We all missed you and the little one at our morning Zen yogi!"  
"Well, Cain and I had an appointment with Dr. Millford."  
"Dr. Millford?" Gomez sounded unsure.  
"I know his practice is rather unusual but -"  
Uncle fester butted in. "Hey Dr. Milford! Did he give you any of those tasty thermometer pops?"  
"Not for my condition I'm afraid."  
"Well you could have picked a few up for me!" The old man squealed offended.  
"I'm very sorry, but my mind was on other things." She gently replied, rolling down the sleeved of her smart gingham dress.  
Gomez laughed. "Cain's still in the top 99th percentile of growth I trust?"  
"Of course."  
"Glad to hear it! Lurch is ever so proud he's got a 99th percentile boy, Mr. Laurie!"  
"It would be a surprise if he didn't." Laurie mumbled begrudgingly and Gomez agreed with another deafening booming laugh and a thud on the poor salesman's back.

_ "Show me that paperwork, Laurie!" The manager demanded. "There must be some clause, some misspelling we can use to worm our way out of this mess - there always is!"  _   
_ "I don't have it. I left everything there and I am not going back if that's what you're thinking!"  _  
_ "I might be thinking that!" The manager rubbed his face with two great sweaty palms. "How much were the policies? Tell me the truth." _  
_ "You don't want to know." _  
_ "I know I don't want to know but I have to know!" _  
_ Laurie shuddered and took a breath. He couldn't look his manager in the eye. "A £3 million dollar policy - across the two houses." _

_ The manager's face glazed over in an expression of absolute horror, his skin as sallow as egg whites. He wobbled and swayed in his spindly office chair, finally tumbling out of it onto the carpet in a huge heap. The thud of his collapse was so loud that the manager's secretary, Mrs. Henderson, buzzed in from her station outside the door asking what the noise was. Laurie called her in and the two somehow propped the portly man up against the base of the desk, Mrs. Henderson gently shaking him until he came to. _


	10. Chapter 10

_"We're ruined! The company's sunk! It's all over!" The manager curled over and sobbed, Mrs. Henderson patting his back in a flippant 'there-there'. She stared down Laurie sitting uncomfortably in the opposing chair, she really didn't like him. Charmaine Henderson never liked him, but ever since Laurie made a pass at her at the office Christmas party, she detested him. She left-hooked him with a brandy and cranberry trifle and called him a pathetic, chauvinist slime ball - and perhaps, Laurie realised, she was right._

_If only he hadn't followed Mrs. Lurch into that mad house, imagining that eventually a woman as beautiful as her would throw herself into his arms. What Laurie had assumed were low standards in men was in fact a very odd taste in men. That supernaturally alluring and beautiful being genuinely loved and was devoted to her strange and formidable spook of a spouse, a concept that Laurie still could not quite grasp._

_"Did it ever occur to you to just say to these people - I'm sorry, we don't do sinkhole insurance - and leave?" Mrs. Henderson sneered, bemused by the abridged version of events she had been given, painted eyebrows aloft. Embarrassingly, Laurie did not._   
_"Sure I did, Charmaine!" He lied. "I'm not an idiot! I'm the victim here!"_   
_"You are an idiot." She scooped a tight black curl of hair behind her ear and crossed her arms. "And you're only a victim of yourself! You know, they have support groups for men like you. Men who turn into chimps in the mere presence of a pantyhose commercial. You need help." She had a point. Mrs. Henderson had also attended book club with Laurie's ex wife, they were friends and therefor fiercely protective of one another. So when Laurie's wondering ways caught up with him and she kicked him out, it gave Mrs. Henderson an excuse to hate him even more._

_"What's that called? Lechers Anonymous?" The manager finally spat, his friendship with Laurie being tested to the extremes. Mrs. Henderson smiled and laughed and patted his hand. "You're back with us, Archie!"_   
_"You were always telling me to get rid of that ass, Charmaine and I never listened!" He pointed an accusing finger at Laurie who huffed._

_"Those people couldn't be reasoned with! Those people were beyond anything science can explain!" He argued leaping up in frustration and pacing the room._   
_"You'll say anything to paint yourself the victim, won't you?" Dark eyes looking him up and down._   
_"Wait till you hear what happened next!"_

While Fester was performing impromptu parlour tricks to celebrate the signing of the new insurance deal, Laurie had somehow snuck off unnoticed. He was deeper in the belly of the old mansion than he could imagine, in some incredibly narrow, dark, stone corridor that he'd thought he'd die in. The ceiling must have been less than six-foot-high - at least he thought, there was no way Lurch could reach him here. He shimmied through the tunnel, eventually the ceiling dropped, and he stooped even more, the walls narrowed and his breath shallowed, the tunnel darkened.

Finally in his madness, he heard a small voice. His eyes sharpened in the dark and Cain stepped forward, a little battery torch in hand, casting a severe upplight on his strange little face.  
"'Ello, Mist-uh Larry." He greeted him with a typical haunting glare. He was like a little possessed Roddy doll in a velvet bottle green sailor hat and suit, he had obviously been dressed in his finest for the imminent party. His little voice was the sweet sing-sing pitch of his mother but the eerie droning register of his father. Laurie, had to admit he was trapped and unfortunately, this little horror may have been his only chance of escape.  
"H-Hey there, my little buddy!" Laurie tried to smile, instead he bore a painful looking grimace at the boy.  
"Wh-where are we here?"  
"Puggy tunal."  
"Oh, I-I might have known."

Laurie felt doomed. He sincerely hoped the above house wouldn't pick this moment to collapse. He twisted and wriggled until he somehow pulled his wallet out of his breast pocket and pinched a dollar bill. "Look, little man!" Laurie waggled the dollar.  
"If you show nice Mr. Laurie the way out of here, I'll give you this whole entire dollar all for you - We got a deal?" Laurie crouched and offered Cain a handshake. "Deewl" The boy shook on it and lead the salesman by the hand further down the tunnel. Just as Laurie thought he couldn't squeeze through much further, Cain turned to his left, prodding at a brick that shifted like a push handle and a hidden door creaked open.

Cain shook Laurie's arm and giggled. "Kitty house!" Mr Laurie gave a vacant smile, not entirely sure what he meant. Suddenly, as he entered the dark room a dreadful realisation dawned on him.

_"That little menace led me right into the Lion's den! - Literally!" That seemed to cheer the manager up as he rolled about chuckling. Mrs. Henderson screeched with laughter, revelling in the image of Laurie narrowly escaping a lion, she was only sad she never got to see it._

Laurie whimpered and squealed with terror, barring his face with his arms, waiting to be ripped to shreds , instead nothing. Laurie peeked through the check of his coat and saw little Cain gently patting the huge purring cat as if it were simply an oversized maine coon. It rolled on it's back, its amber eyes squinted and blinking softly. Laurie could see the opposing door ajar, opening onto the strange medieval torture room. He kept his back to the wall edging past the happy lion stretched out on the floor. He thought of running, but the thought of leaving a defenceless toddler alone in a room with a lion was too low - even for him.  
"Hey" He hushed. "Hey, kiddo, let's- uh- let's go! Mommy will be looking for you!"  
"Mama?" Cain looked up confused, big eyes shiny with concern at the mention of his beloved mother. "Yeah!" Laurie gingerly stretched to offer a hand, trying to keep as far away from the lion as possible. The lion suddenly flipped on it's paws and gave the toddler an almighty, loving goodbye lick and Cain laughed and clumsily petted the lions huge muzzle. "Bye-bye!" The toddler waved as Laurie pulled him briskly away, slamming the door.

"Deewl's a deewl." The toddler held out his little hand aloft and Laurie begrudgingly handed over the dollar bill. Cain held the note up to the light to check and tucked it into his anchor embroidered patch pocket. Laurie leapt across the room to the bolt and lock door and desperately yanked at the handle. Cain watched, head cocked to the side and screwed up his face at the struggling guest. The little boy knew what to do. He knew who to call on whenever there was anything needing fixed around the house. Whenever there was any problem or issue, there was one person who could always fix it no matter what it was.

"DADDYYYY!" Cain screamed as loud as he possibly could, in truly bloodcurdling timbre.

Laurie jumped out of his skin and grabbed his chest, his ears ringing. He was sure he would die when suddenly the huge Egyptian sarcophagus that was stood propped up in the far corner of the room swung open and Lurch stepped out, panicked expression on his usually completely stoic face.  
"Daddy, Larry want to go out!" Cain pointed as Lurch scooped him up, relieved that Cain was alright - completely unbothered that Laurie wasn't. Lurch crowded in on Laurie, father and son looming over him from high, the same gloomy expression on their faces. Lurch's huge hand grasped the handle and the door unlatched with not much effort at all.

"It's a push door..." He droned shaking his head slowly. Not for the first time that day, Laurie fell to his knees and sobbed.


	11. Chapter 11

Laurie was too exhausted to feel terror anymore, it was just misery now, he was starting to accept his entrapment. When Laurie collapsed at the door of the 'playroom', The butler had picked him up under his arm like an old rug and propped him up in an otherworldly grand sunroom somewhere to the rear of the house. The chairs were mismatched, some decadent carved oak, some simple velvet vanity stools, some made of wicker, others made of plastic. Lurch had saw fit to seat Mr. Laurie in a garish mint-striped deckchair for some reason - perhaps to make him feel small, if so, he was succeeding. Laurie peered at his strange surroundings from an awkwardly low vantage. It was another dining area separate from the inferior luncheon room with a table you could feed a small army at. The room was vast and vaulted with entire walls of beautiful, intricate, ancient leaded glass and a specimen nursery of strange and threatening plants, some winding up the fragile panes, some potted but many adorning the huge, long banquet table.

Lurch was completing preparations, his black jacket off, his sleeves rolled up but his black bow tie as straight and as neat as ever. He was lighting a vast catholic wake of pillar candles amongst the spread of dried leaves and snapping flycatchers that adorned the table. He appeared across from Laurie and leaned over striking a match of his palm. He began to light the incredibly low hanging candle chandelier with ease, turning it igniting each candle unperturbed as it spat new flames and smoked unpleasantly, before eventually letting it go. It softly spun like a very slow Catherine wheel, spitting red embers in the low summer evening light.

_"That sounds like a great party. Honestly, you really have no culture, Laurie." Mrs. Henderson made a point of using his surname, folding her arms, and smirking._  
 _"Do you sit your guests in an old deckchair when you're throwing a lavish dinner party?"_ _  
"If you were my guest, you'd be sitting on the floor."_

Laurie held his hands up in a praying beg at the butler, who's face betrayed a fleeting expression of pity. "Please... Please let me go" Laurie pleaded.  
Lurch looked confused. "The party is soon." He said, matter of fact.  
"I don't want to be at this party! I want to go home!"  
"My wife want's you here."  
Laurie scoffed frustrated and defeated. "And let me guess, what your wife wants your wife gets?"  
"Yes." Lurch snapped gruffly not appreciating the salesman's tone. Laurie gulped and shrunk in his deckchair.

Lurch walked over to what looked like a closet door, he gave a dark warning glower at Laurie as he turned and stepped through it.  
"Wait there." He commanded and he slammed the door. After less than thirty seconds, certainly not enough time for Laurie to try another escape, the door opened, and Lurch reappeared. Somehow, he had re-emerged dressed in a smart tailored three-piece dinner suit, complete with white tie and glossy black cummerbund. His strange grey hair was neatly parted and combed to the side. From some angles he looked almost normal. He pulled his wedding band out of his pocket and screwed it back onto his long finger, staring at Laurie all the while. Laurie got the message.

_"That guy sounds familiar." Mrs Henderson pondered. In part to refuse to validate Laurie's reaction to the family, in part because the strange ‘big monster’ Laurie rambled about genuinely rang a bell._   
_"Probably one of your old boyfriends." Laurie spat back._   
_"Even if he is twice as weird and ugly and scary as you make out, he's got a much better chance than you ever did."_

"Oh Lurch!" Came the elegant voice of Morticia from behind the salesman. " How wonderful it looks!" Laurie turned and there stood Morticia in her finest, an elegant black lace gown, not unlike her day dress but certainly more elaborate, adorned with intricate beads and fragile embroidery. It was too much for a Tuesday evening. She had her elegant arm linked with Lily's who was wearing another dramatic evening gown, a lilac, draping, pleated, silk chiffon number that wouldn't look out of place on a stage production of Antigone. She gasped and grinned revealing perfect white fangs, delighted as Morticia was at the impressively decorated room. Her luminescent green eyes rolled high as she admired the beautiful windows.  
"Oh Mrs. Addams! What a fine old home you have. It reminds me of the great hall at Martinuzzi Castle - I remember Grandpa threw my sweet 16th there!" She sighed fondly and patted Morticia's hand "It makes me feel so at home!"  
"Our home is your home, dear!" Morticia smiled. "I'm so pleased to have found a friend who has so many excellent recipes. I can't wait to try that cod liver and porcupine bisque!" Lily chuckled, embarrassed by the compliments before catching sight of Laurie melting into the deckchair.

"Mr. Laurie!" Lily glided over to greet him, taking his reluctant hand, and yanking him out of the chair. "In 10 minutes, we need you to go retrieve Marilyn!" She instructed.  
Laurie folded in protest. "Look lady-"  
"Wednesday has already convinced her to put on her cocktail dress" Morticia interrupted him. "She told her she's going to have a dress run of her Fatty Arbuckle play and she wants Marilyn to play Virginia Rappe."  
"What a clever girl!" Lily exclaimed and Morticia beamed.  
"I need to go!" Laurie almost squealed.  
"Yes you do, Mr. Laurie! The party is very soon you need to get Marilyn." Lily clasped a clawed hand to her cheek in thought. "Let's see, Cain's with Herman, Grandpa's in the kitchen, Wednesday should be here soon. Mr. Laurie - you should go find Marilyn!" Lily shoved him towards the door. "When Wednesday sounds her piccolo, lead her back here but make sure it stays a surprise!"  
"No...!" Lurch exclaimed. Lily and Morticia raised their eyebrows. "Why ever not?"  
Lurch's eyes darted for the words to explain. "Do not give her a fright." He instructed clearly.  
"What's wrong with a little fright, Lurch?" Morticia asked coyly, trying to read her butler's mind.  
"Well, Mr. Laurie, don't ruin the surprise but make sure she doesn't get a fright!" Lily tried to hurriedly placate Lurch.  
"How? -"  
"No fright." Lurch growled at Laurie as Lily yanked the door open and shoved the salesman, sending him flying into the corridor and landing in a crumple on the bare oak wood.


	12. Chapter 12

_"I tried to get back to the office to get my briefcase - but that house - it was like a sliding puzzle."_

_This was cold comfort to the manager, who shakily sipped at a coffee, he was dreading his next scotch on the rocks boardroom manager's meeting. Laurie was up pacing the room again, his waxed hair ruffled and sticking up like a cockatoo, puffing on a cigarette. Mrs. Henderson perched on the edge of the desk and watched Laurie with less than a little sympathy._

_"Why did you leave it there in the first place?" She snapped._   
_"Well, I hardly chose too! I didn't have any say in where I was going or what I was doing - but I tried my best!"_

He scampered down winding dimly lit halls and passageways trying his best to retrace his steps. He was blindly turning, every door opened on somewhere new and led him further into the house. If a room did have a window (which they mostly didn't) it would be either metal frames rusted shut or a dingy porthole. The thought of smashing a window did cross his mind, but he was used to Lurch now and knew he'd appear from nowhere and catch him mid swing.

He couldn't exactly accuse them of kidnapping, but that was how he felt. The panic was building in his feet as he lifted into a clumsy jog. He shouldered in every door he could. If they opened at all, they opened on an new bizarre room. A distillery, a computer mainframe, a guest room with upholstered walls. The hallways were stretching longer and longer. The house was so impossibly complex and vast that Laurie resolved that he had finally lost his mind.

Laurie took a breath and shivered, he fell against the wall and slid down, sitting on the cold floorboards. He rubbed his face before knocking his head back against the plaster. On the opposing wall was an overcrowded assembly of photos in ornate frames. Strange, hostile faces glowered down on him - a few he recognised.

There was one of a little girl who was obviously Wednesday around a decade or so ago - distinctly recognisable by her huge pitch black eyes. Swinging on the rocking unicorn that Cain had inherited, pulling a petted lip and holding a headless doll. Another was of a roly-poly baby in a pin striped baby grow. This wasn't Cain or Wednesday, but by the way the infant brandished an oversized cartridge fuse like a rattle, he guessed this was the infamous Pugsley. There was snaps of family holidays spent under the moon, a creature covered in hair and a strange set of identical twin girls. A portrait of a maddened, dishevelled, ancient man laughing maniacally, another portrait of a dour, week-chinned lady wearing her long black hair in unflattering twister buns to the side of her head. The photograph that disturbed Laurie the most, was the obvious wedding portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Lurch.

The photo looked more like a memento-mori, shrouded in darkness with Marilyn in a black lace wedding gown. Any other woman would look like a corpse but she looked incredible as she lovingly gazed at her strange groom. He huffed jealously and stared at the photograph.

_"Plenty of women don't wear white, Laurie. Did you see what Cilla Black wore?"_  
 _"It wasn't the dress that bothered me it was that gorgeous, sexy creature being married to such a goon! The fact that they have a kid together!" He theatrically shuddered._ _  
__"No." Mrs. Henderson stood up, finger pointed at Laurie, determined to give the salacious salesman a taste of reality. "You don't understand meeting a happy couple that love each other that you can't ruin!" She poked his shoulder. "She didn't like you back, and that bothered you. Some people aren't painfully miserable, Laurie, and if you're ever going to stop being painfully miserable yourself - you're going to have to learn how to be happy for others!"_

"Are you alright, Mr. Laurie?" A feminine voice delicately asked. Laurie looked to his left where two dainty feet stood heels together. Marilyn smiled and sat down next to him, here legs straight with her ankles elegantly crossed. "You're a family man yourself, Mr. Laurie?"   
He chuckled not sure how to answer. "I can tell." She concluded. "Have you any children?"   
"Four that I know of." He bitterly half joked. "One girl and three boys - the oldest is 8."  
"That sounds like a busy house!"  
He gave a nervous grimace. "It was. My wife and I are separated now."   
"I'm so sorry." She apologised like she was hearing of a death. He gave another nervous chuckle and decided to change the subject. 

"So what attracted you to this lucky devil then?" He asked, genuinely curious.  
She laughed as if the answer was obvious. "Why he's only intelligent, sensitive, caring, talented, hardworking, not to mention very tall and _very_ handsome!" She sighed. "He makes me feel beautiful."   
"Surely everyone must tell you you're beautiful?"  
Her blue eyes dulled and a wash of sadness seemed to come over her. "Everyone is so kind but... I know how I am."   
"Huh?"   
"Well... I love my folks but I've always been the black sheep of the family you see, they don't mean to make me feel different but... with my husband and Cain - in my own little family I feel completely normal, Mr. Laurie. I feel right at home!" She turned to him and smiled. 

Everything in Laurie's instincts told him to flirt with her, pursue her, convince her that she can do better, lean in and kiss her. But some odd platonic fondness came over him and he found himself smiling back in friendship. He didn't remotely understand her adoration for her husband, but he found it deep within himself to respect this marriage. Laurie had never felt at home anywhere but it sounded nice.

"Your fella's pretty anxious that you shouldn't get a fright."   
"Why ever would I get a fright? Oh no - has Fester live wired the light switches again?"   
"N - no - I hope not! No, well... it's meant to be a surprise but..." Laurie considered, it seemed like Lurch would be less angry if the surprise was ruined than if Marilyn got scared.   
"A surprise?" She echoed excitedly.  
"Yeah, your fella's flown your folks over from California for the kid's birthday - they're in the dining room waiting for you now - but you've got to act surprised! Or I think your aunt will rip my arms off." 

She giggled and beamed, a huge tickled smile spread across her lit up face. She held her hands clasped to her chest. "He did that for me?"  
"Well, I - I don't quite see eye to eye with your husband but he sure does ...love you, honey." Those were words Laurie would never imagine himself uttering to a housewife - especially one he liked the look of so much. He reluctantly pulled himself to his feet once more and helped Marilyn up.  
"You gotta promise you'll act surprised!" He insisted and she nodded as she hurried him down the long dark corridor.

_"It wasn't that I wasn't happy for her - I actually was for once - I just, didn't really understand it... that's all." He tucked his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor. Mrs Henderson pursed her lips and softened a little._

_"I feel sorry for you, Laurie, I really do."_


	13. Chapter 13

No one needed to worry about Marilyn getting a fright, it was apparent she was made of tougher stuff by the way she effortlessly caught a fainting Laurie in her arms as the reunited family yelled 'surprise'. Lurch scooped Laurie forward, lightning quick to take the dead weight from his wife's burden and let him plonk to the ground in a tattered, exhausted heap.

"Wha - what happened?" He muttered through cold sweats, blinking out of his blackout. Lurch leaned in, far too close for comfort and whispered impossibly low so no one else in the party could hear. "You fell on my pregnant wife."  
The butler growled, the salesman gulped, stared, and shook. It felt like a threat, and if Marilyn wasn't so fond of Laurie it might have been. Instead Lurch hoisted Laurie to his feet and marched him by the scruff of his neck over to the same collapsing deckchair he had been in earlier.

_"Pregnant. Unbelievable." Laurie shook his head, his mind a million miles away as he stared out the window; the logistics deeply troubling him._  
_The manager scoffed. "You've got 4 kids and you're no oil painting!" He quipped. Mrs. Henderson snorted and laughed. "I'd punch any guy's lights out if he had fallen on Edwina - especially while she was in the family way!"_  
_"Yeah! That big guy can't be all that bad if all he did was look at you mean and make you sit in a deck chair! I'm sure he could have done much, much worse!"_

_The secretary had a point. It was obvious that Lurch could have sliced Laurie up like salami without breaking a sweat, and he had plenty of chances to do so, but chose not to. Whether Lurch was genuinely misunderstood, or playing a deranged game of cat and mouse, Laurie would never know - although he imagined it was a combination of both._

Lily had leapt up to greet her niece, cloaking her in her chiffon gown in a loving maternal hug and guiding Marilyn to take the ornate oak chair between her and Cain, who sat in a lifted wooden chair at the head of the table, looking like a smug little duke in his velvet green costume. The baby was eyeing his huge, grey, three-tiered birthday cake decorated with little fondant sinking battleships and an orange attacking kraken.  
"Cake, Mama!" He shouted, pointing excitedly, and kicking his buckled feet. Marilyn giggled and kissed his forehead, gently convincing him to wait.

In the short time between Laurie leaving and re-entering the dining room, the table had been filled up with a banquet of the borderline for human consumption. putrid yellow savoury jellies, stewed swordfish and grilled lizards. Soups that frothed and dips that bubbled. Cactus leaves and equally as spikey exotic fruits. The adults drank wine so dark it was pretty much black, that fizzed once poured. 

The party was an intimate affair but none-the-less a smorgasbord of the bizarre - ranging from the quirky to the eccentric to the beyond belief. Most of whom he had met but the one who had tipped him over the edge was a man Laurie was yet to encounter.

There sat opposite the salesman was a huge, hideous and undeniably green creature. He was the groom from the wedding picture in Marilyn's home - the picture that Laurie had assumed, or more hoped, was from a movie. Lurch was somehow, no longer the biggest monster in the room and looked like a regular Joe as he served the creature some wine. His laugh was immense and table-rattling and so low it gave Laurie heartburn. It was obvious he found Laurie's fainting hilarious as he shook his clenched fists in excitement. Lily tried to chide her husband for being impolite, and he desperately tried to contain his joy behind black, twitching sealed lips that made him look like he was trying to swallow a frog.

"Uncle Herman, this is our friend Mr. Laurie! He's an insurance salesman." Marilyn politely introduced, subtly telling her uncle off with a stiff infliction of her tone.  
"Oh, I'm glad to hear you're making friends, dear!" His voice was soft and foppish, and his hands were disproportionately small as he stretched a long arm across the table to greet Laurie. Laurie took the cold hand and weekly shook, grimacing.  
"I'm Herman Munster, how do you do?" Laurie didn't answer, only managing a squeak.  
"...Well it's very nice to meet you too, sir. I can see you were falling over yourself to join us!" He let go of Laurie's hand and erupted into more bone-rattling laughs. Cain giggled like an imp at a joke that had obviously went over his head, finding his great-uncle's laughter infectious.  
"Herman!" Lily hissed. "The poor man obviously has an illness!"

"Yeah, I don't feel very well I need to go home." Laurie managed through a cracking voice.  
"No to worry, dear." Morticia stood up and leaned forward into the table, taking a ladle from a strange, frothing punch bowl that sat central and presenting Laurie a serving in an ornate cut wine glass. "Drink this, it'll make you feel much better." She said with an almost devious smile. Laurie stretched his arms out, pushing himself away from the drink, repulsed by the smell of cabbage and tinned meat it emitted.  
Cain watched him and shook his little head concerned. "Larry not want it."

"No matter, Mr. Laurie! Grandmamma's Pangolin Margarita can be a little too rich if you're feeling queasy!" Gomez tried to comfort, unaware that it was his cigar fumes that was making the guest feel the most unwell.  
"Don't worry, the Romans were known to vomit at the table." Added Wednesday. If she were a normal teenager, Laurie would assume she was being impertinent, but it was apparent Wednesday was sincere and in her own way, trying to be friendly.  
Herman leaned into the conversation. "You know, you should try shock treatment for that! I used to always faint like you do, I was a real lazy bones, always dead on my feet until a little jolt woke me up for good!" He didn't laugh, apparently completely serious.  
"I can help with that!" Uncle Fester excitedly squealed. "I picked up an electroshock machine when the old hospital foreclosed!" Laurie could only stare whiplashed until Lurch, brushed past him with a growl.

He felt a tap on his left shoulder, and he turned his head to see a large hand silently but politely offering him a clear glass of water. The hand looked like Lurch's but he was now sat next to Cain, with Marilyn excitedly thanking him for such a thoughtful surprise. Laurie tried to thank whoever it was but as he turned, no one was to be seen.  
"Dear Thing!" Morticia exclaimed. "Always so thoughtful!" Laurie whipped around in the other direction, again finding the space vacant.

_"It was almost like it was ...just... a hand!"_  
_"That's handy." The manager was now far from taking him seriously._

"We're sorry Eddie couldn't be here, dear!" Lily apologised to her niece. "He's on a fieldtrip with his college class, but he called from Komsomolets Island last Thursday to send you all his love."  
"Oh I understand! I wouldn't want Eddie to interrupt his studies - and besides, we'll see him at halloween!"  
"What if he never comes home? The Artic is an immeasurably dangerous place." Wednesday said monotonously.  
"Oh don't you worry, Wednesday dear! It'll take more than a little snow to end our boy; Eddie's got a fur coat!" Lily said proudly, not in the least disturbed or offended by the girl's comments.  
"Built in!" Added Herman.

"But where's Grandpa?" Marilyn asked as she took her serving of diced electric eel. "Cain's been pining for him. He's forever drawing little crayon pictures of wolves and bats."  
"Oh he'll be here soon, darling. Don't you worry!" Lily replied vaguely as she reached across Marilyn to Cain, holding his relatively little hand as he smiled. "My, haven't you grown!"  
"Exponentially!" Gomez quipped.  
"Like nothing Dr. Milford's seen before!" Added Morticia.  
"99th percentile." Lurch proudly affirmed with a twitch of the lip that implied an almost smile as he broke up Cain's dinner with the edge of a silver fork.

_"What's wrong with that? Doesn't every parent want their kid to hit their milestones? A big baby's a healthy baby, after all." Mrs. Henderson shrugged._  
_"Hit their milestones - are you kidding? That 'baby' was the size of a kindergartener and he was only born in '71! They were acting like they actually wanted him to turn out like his great redwood of a father. If that was my boy I'd stop feeding him sweetcorn!"_  
_"Oh for god's sake! Some people are tall get over it! You ran screaming through the streets because you met some big guy and his big kid."_  
_Laurie turned and scampered back over to the desk, gripping the wooden edges and leaning over to his colleagues on the other side, eyes wide._  
_"It wasn't that! It was after dinner... I'll never be able to really explain what happened after dinner."_


	14. Chapter 14

"Mama..." Cain desperately pointed at the cake with a pathetic mewl, he was starting to well up with frustration. It was cruel to keep a birthday cake on the table for the entirely of a meal, especially just out of the reach of a toddler. Marilyn took his hat, stroked his hair and tried to remind him to wait but he couldn't stop from whining.  
"Present." Lurch looked knowingly at Marilyn, hoping to placate the toddler for just a little longer, at least until the rest of the tabled had finished their main. Laurie had barely touched his komodo dragon egg quiche.  
"Oh yes, darling! Would you like an early birthday present?" She tickled his cheek.  
His eyes lit up and he nodded urgently, swinging his feet. Lurch produced a neat present wrapped in an old map and tied in a brown bow. He slipped it in front of Cain who grabbed it and ripped it open. He uncovered a brown box underneath and found some trouble untucking the carboard. Marilyn helped him open it, sweetly giggling she peered up at the rest of the table, "It's also a very early Christmas present. It's something I'm glad you're all here to find out about. I'm sure you'll all be as excited as we are!"  
"It's a bomb?" Fester squealed ecstatically.  
"More of a bombshell..." She replied.

Cain's brown furrowed as he held up a mossy-green knitted sweater. Not unhappy with his new sweater but slightly disappointed it wasn't a new toy ship. He smiled bemused struggling to read the slogan his mother had knitted and looked to his father, who seemed to telepathically speak to him with a twitch of the eyebrow. Lurch turned the jumper in Cain's hand so the knitted "big brother" could be read by the family and Marilyn beamed the most vibrant painted smile.

"Darling!" Lily looked like she was on the edge of tears. She took her husband's green hand, stroked Marilyn's platinum hair before reaching for Cain's little hand. "Oh sweetheart, you're going to be a big brother!"  
Cain's face fell. His big black eyes grew wild and looked at his mother who smiled and nodded. The rest of the table looked to him grinning, apart from Laurie who had his own problems. Cain's great uncle and aunt, chuckled and cood and nestled together in sentimental reminiscence. Wednesday gave a lazy smile, Morticia beamed and nodded at him holding her husband's hand. Gomez laughed and puffed great celebratory plume into the air and Fester bore his dreadful black teeth in a jack-o-lantern grin. Finally Cain looked to his father in panic, his face begging for it not to be true.

Lurch nodded and Cain erupted into hysterical, devastated crying.

_"Serves that little monster right!"_  
_"Honestly Laurie! What's wrong with you? - that's a two year old!" Mrs. Henderson stared aghast._  
_"Nearly three - he knew exactly what he was doing - he led me right into a lion pit!"_  
_"Well, he should have left you there!"_

Gomez laughed. "There, there, little fellow! Not to worry! Pugsley was just the same when he found out about Wednesday!"  
"Another Lurch! Oh I do hope it's a little girl!" Morticia added.  
"A little girl that looks like Lurch! Wouldn't that be wonderful!" Gomez replied. Laurie wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic.

_"Hang on!" Mrs. Henderson stopped him. "Lurch? was that their name?"_  
_"Yeah! Weird name for a weird family."_  
_"Sonny and Marilyn Lurch? Their little boy's called Cain - a little blonde cherub who loves boats?" She repeated._  
_"I think she was called Marilyn, that suits her, but that goon called Sonny? Couldn't possibly be, that's far too regular. If he had a first name at all it must have been Vladimir or Hugo, something like that."_  
_Mrs. Henderson ruffled and laughed disbelievingly shaking her head. "Marilyn Lurch is a friend of mine; we play bridge together! I like her husband Sonny; sure he's big and quiet but he's no monster! He's a pretty good bridge player too, when he gets a Thursday night off he joins us. He's good friends with Ishmael since they both love classical music."_

_Laurie squinted at her, trying to imagine Charmaine Henderson, her husband Ishmael and Marilyn Lurch, all relatively regular people gathered casually with cocktails with that monster; playing bridge like they weren't sitting with the undead._

_"You're honestly not freaked out by that guy?"  
"Sonny is a kind, dignified and intelligent man. Yeah, he might look a little different but he's dedicated to his family and great company when you get to know him! I knew you were shallow but acting like someone is proof of the supernatural just because they look different! Honestly! It's pathetic!"  
"I'll give you proof of the supernatural, Charmaine! Just you listen!"_

Suddenly, there was a wet thud coming from the table and the chatter stopped. Laurie jumped and shrugged back, gripping the wooden edged of the deck chair as he realised where the noise was coming from.

_"Something was breaking out of the birthday cake!"_  
_"Not a dancer I hope!" The manager exclaimed. Mrs. Henderson elbowed him in the ribs._  
_"No! The cake was only two foot tall - far too small for a person! It was a - a creature!"_  
_"A rat?"_  
_"A bat!"_

The cake suddenly split and collapsed at the impact of a ricocheting bat, catapulting up in a squeal. Cain immediately stopped crying and gazed amazed. His head turning to follow the bat as it battered off the roof, hit a wall and landed in a crash in a plant pot.

_"It turned - it turned into the old man! The kid's great-grandpa! He was a bat!" Laurie loomed over Mrs. Henderson and the manager, who sat on the opposite side of the desk and looked at each other in shared concern.  
"I saw it with my own eyes! He was a bat!" He rasped clasping his face. "I saw it! It was real! I saw it!"_

Laurie stared ridged with fear as the old man pulled himself to his feet with octogenarian frailty and he clasped his liver spotted head, stumbling around.  
"Not exactly the planned entrance, Herman!" He spat accusingly.  
"Well I followed that recipe you gave me!" Herman's lips twitched. "I said we should have gone for a sponge not a nut-cake! A sponge would have been much easier to escape from!"  
"Well I told you not to add so much asphalt but oh no you never listen do you, Herman! - No. You know what? Not tonight. It doesn't matter!" Grandpa brushed it off and looked to Cain who began to giggle excitedly through teary eyes holding his arms out.

"There he is!" Grandpa beamed, a clawed finger playfully pointing. "My 66th Great-grandbaby! Happy birthday my precious little devil!" Grandpa picked Cain up and the toddler laughed delighted. The ancient man tapped Cain's nose.  
"Now, what have y'got to cry about, huh?! You're going to have a new little playmate to play HMS Terror in the lake with! Which reminds me!" Grandpa held Cain on one arm while he held his left palm flat.  
"Y' ready?" Cain nodded with a grin. "Blither, blether, bile and bloat, - give this boy a new toy boat!" A flash of purple erupted from his palm and as the smoke dissipated, in his hand he held a beautiful model galleon, far too big to possibly hide up his sleeve. Cain squealed in excitement and the rest of the adults clapped and laughed, apart from Laurie who hysterically broke into nervous, panicked shrieks.

Laurie leapt up, arms shaking as he continued to sound panicked wails. He scurried around for an escape, scrambling around the table as he pointed at Grandpa, screaming all the while.  
"Hey! It's Mr. Needtogo! Still not found the way out, fella?" Grandpa laughed and Laurie screeched like a wounded bird. He tumbled backwards into a vine that seemed to come alive and wrap around him, squeezing deathly tight.

"Now, now Cleopatra! You've already had your supper!" Morticia said as if chiding a child. The vine released its grip on the salesman and he clambered free. Shaking and turning he backed himself against the window. He looked around, the whole table was staring at him. Some wearing bemused smiles, some with confused furrowed brows. He looked around for anything to help him escape and spied a large heavy terracotta planter that he lifted with the intent to smash the window. He held the pot aloft, still screaming.

"Mr. Laurie?" Marilyn softly interrupted, she had appeared besides him and he froze. "Are you anxious to get home?" She elegantly unlatched a glass door that he hadn't noticed in his mania, holding it open and letting in some much needed fresh air. Laurie stopped and slowly lowered the pot, shaking, he couldn't reply. He put the pot down and walked slowly, cautiously over to the open door.  
"Thank you ever so much for joining us tonight. I hope you have a safe journey home." She smiled kindly, Laurie smiled nervously before suddenly darting through the open door, screaming as he vaulted over the old mansion's wrought iron fence and breaking into the street still consumed in hysterics.

"Odd fella." Grandpa smirked and waved as the family listened to the disappearing screams of the distraught insurance salesman.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick heads up for this chapter there are quite a few references to Alcohol. I know that's can be triggering for many people. It's a very 60s/70s mad-men type officey place so I bumped the overall rating up to teen as well just to be safe. Hope you enjoy!

"You're seriously friends with him?"  
"Sure I am! Marilyn and Sonny even came with us to the bungalow in Catskills one summer a few years ago. We all went hiking, to the casino, to restaurants, got drunk on the porch and Ishmael and Sonny played four handed Corelli on the electric organ. Of course, things have to be more sensible now we have kids, but Sylvia and Cain are pretty much the same age, so Marilyn brings him over on a Saturday for a playdate."  
"Him? The Catskills?"  
"What's wrong with that?"

What Mrs. Henderson was describing was totally normal, regular, typical behaviour. The sort of thing everyday folk in their 30s and 40s do all the time. Marilyn he could accept - picturing her in sunglasses and a mini skirt, playing records and horsing around with her friends in a holiday bungalow, but not her husband. He still could not accept the coupling. Marilyn herself had explained it but that didn't mean it made any sense.

"Isn't she a little young for him?" Laurie was skirting around the real issue.  
"She's 38 and he's 42. I don't think that's much of a difference." Mrs. Henderson shrugged.  
"No way! She's 38? You're kidding! I thought she was about 28!"  
"I know, lucky girl. And she genuinely thinks she's hideous for some reason. From what I can gather her family in California gave her a bit of a complex growing up."  
"Well... don't you think she's a little too... good looking for him?"  
Mrs. Henderson scoffed. "Seriously? You're the authority of who she should or should not be attracted to? She loves him, she thinks he's Roger Moore. He's her husband so nothing else matters - no one else's opinion matters, Laurie. Some women just like tall men." She shrugged and Laurie seemed offended by the last statement.  
"What so, because he's big women just don't mind that he's obviously been dead for 6 months?"  
"Oh shut up!" She spat. "Sonny is not dead. He's a nice man, a devoted husband and father, and a great friend - I'm not having you project your insecurities onto him, try to make out he's a monster just to deflect from you being pathetic, and miserable with your life. You've been drinking more since Francine kicked you out. I know every guy here's a day drinker, but on a hot day it can catch up with you."

The manager nodded and took a breath. "I didn't want to say anything but... come on George, a hip flask of scotch first thing maybe isn't the best for the old compos-mentis."  
"You're a hypocrite, Arch!" Laurie pointed and chuffed, screwing up his face. "Any meeting in this place is like an Irish wake and you know it. You're sitting there giving me advice on my drinking like you haven't got two hundred dollars’ worth of brandy stashed in that filing cabinet!"  
Mrs. Henderson stood up and rounded the desk, standing in front of the manager protectively. "We're not talking about that, we're trying to explain the things that happened, that you said you saw!" She crossed her arms. "Now, you've got to admit seeing a man turn into a bat is something a drunk guy would see."  
"Bat turn into a man and... well... maybe..."  
"I've been friends with Sonny and Marilyn for about six years and I've never seen anything I couldn't explain."  
"Explain him then!"  
"Oh for god's sake!"  
"I've been a salesman since I was 16 - I can handle my booze! What I can't handle is that house, or disembodied hands, or eight-foot Frankenstein uncles or vampire aunts or great-grandpas that turn into bats. But most of all, I can't handle the thought of that spook knocking that gorgeous thing up!"  
"So that's what this is all about, huh? You're being disgusting!" She lunged; arms still folded but tempted to slap him out of it. "That's my friend you're talking about! I can't believe I've found out this way. Poor Marilyn would have been excited to tell me on Saturday, instead I find out through some entitled letch!"  
"Will you both calm down!" The manager suddenly shouted, thudding his desk. The salesman and the secretary turned, slightly shocked by the usually easy-going manager's outburst.  
He took a deep breath and relevelled. "Charmaine, if you know this couple, surely you can get us out of this? Could you phone them or something, make up some excuse?"  
"Don't worry a bit, Archie. I'll fix this."

Mrs. Henderson walked out for a moment and returned with a leather-bound contact book, flicking the pages with her thumb as she went. She chucked one last warning glare at Laurie before she circled the desk once more, gesturing for the manager to get out of his seat and sat down in his place crossing her legs. She quickly flicked the rotary dial and waited as it rang. Archie and Laurie stood back to the walls, the latter chewing his fingernails.

"Sonny! It's Charmaine! Hi, honey, how are things?" A ghoulish rumble came from the other end of the line, neither men could make out any noise that sounded remotely like a human voice. The manager furrowed his brow and shared a concerned look with Laurie.  
"The family's over, huh? Oh god yeah, of course he's three tomorrow? I can't believe it! It'll be Kindergarten soon!" Another indistinct thunder came through the line and Charmaine erupted into laughter. "Oh stop! You're a riot, Sonny!" She covered the receiver and mouthed "He's so funny." At Laurie who leaned forward and mouthed back "No he's not." His eyes wide, aggressively shaking his head.

Another grumble. "Oh I'm fine, Ishmael bought a new box of pianola rolls at an estate sale and he's excited for you to hear them, you still on for coming over next Thursday? Great!" Charmaine could hear Marilyn's soft voice in the background as she gently asked for the receiver.  
"Charmaine! how lovely to hear from you!"  
"Marilyn! Hello darling! That husband of yours honestly! He's always such a carry on!"  
"Oh he is! He's a scoundrel!" Marilyn's voice was a clear as a bell but breathy, soufflé-light, and sweet. Her giggle was like a bird call. Charmaine quickly cut her off before she could ask how she was. "Listen honey, you know that I work at Pomeroy and Sons now?"  
"Really? Why I knew you were a secretary, but I didn't know the exact company. Why we just bought insurance from there!"  
"That's what I'm calling you about, darling." Charmaine hushed her voice, indicating the conversation turning from pleasantries to gossip. "You know the guy you bought from?" Laurie ruffled; sure things were about to get more personal. "You don't wanna buy from him." Mrs. Henderson looked him up and down over the receiver.

"Mr. Laurie? Why ever not? He seemed ever so nice! A little flighty, sure."  
"No darling, he's a real creep. Cheated on his wife several times. He even made a move on me at the Christmas party, he's made a move on pretty much all the girls in the office. He's a real sleezeball!"  
The voice on the line gasped. "Oh how terrible! I didn't notice anything untoward - I think sometimes I'm lucky I'm so plain!"  
"Oh come on, what are you saying that for?"  
"You're right, ignore me. So, he really cheated on his wife?"  
"He sure did, sweetie, four poor little kids caught in that crossfire, so tragic. He'd been going around the houses delivering more than home policy leaflets I'm afraid to say!"

Laurie, flung himself down into a chair in a sulk. He guessed that people talked about him like this, especially the secretaries, but being witness to it stung more than he had expected. It suddenly dawned on him the damage he had done. Around his immediate colleagues, the other salesman, his drinking buddies, it was all one big joke, but hearing Marilyn's revulsion suddenly brought it all home.

"How horrible!"  
"So what did he sell you?"  
Marilyn sighed. "Well, Sonny and I took out a million dollar policy on the house and Mr. Addams took out two million."  
Oh honey, no!"  
"Oh no, what have we done?"  
"Honey, he's not even a home insurer! He's a penny-policy guy, he's scammed you! For a 3 million dollar sale he'll get 5% commission if it goes through! 5% that won't ever see those poor kids."  
"Hey!" Laurie shouted, that was crossing the line. Mrs. Henderson covered the receiver and told him to shut up.  
"Why such a big policy?"  
"You know Pugsley's tunnels?"  
"Oh yeah, the neighbour on the other side of the big house lost the impala right? Why don't you just take the money you'd spend on the insurance and get the tunnels filled in?"  
Marilyn's voice picked up. "We never thought of that! What a great idea!"  
"My cousin, Bernie has his own building contractors! He specialises in foundation work too; we can talk about that when you next come over!"  
"How wonderful, Charmaine! I must say that sounds a lot less inconvenient that letting the house fall into oblivion. Especially with little ones around. But what about the insurance? Oh dear, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for another favour. Please say no if it's too much."  
"Anything, honey!" Mrs. Henderson smiled at the manager who held his palms together in a prayer.  
"Do you think, you could help us cancel that policy? I don't think we should buy it now. Mr. Addams would certainly never buy something from an adulterer, if he had known he would have gotten the throwing darts out - again."

Laurie gulped and the manager quietly punched the air and breathed a sigh of relief. Mrs. Henderson smiled smugly and stretched. "Oh I'm sure I can call in some favours around the office. My boss, Archie's a nice fella. Oh, look there he is now!" Mrs. Henderson feigned an office pantomime, pretending to call her boss over from across the room. The manager joined in the charade, stomping his feat dramatically as if walking past her desk by chance.  
"Oh Mr. Barker, I have a lady here who wishes to cancel her policy." She pronounced dramatically this time not covering the receiver.  
"Oh well, that shouldn't be a problem!" The manager boomed and took the phone, sitting on the edge of the desk. "Archibald Barker here, senior regional sales manager at Pomeroy and sons, how can I help?" He nodded as if learning everything anew as Marilyn explained. "Aha, I see, oh well, not to worry Mrs. Lurch! We understand. We'll cancel that policy right away for you! If you like I can send someone round to pick up that briefcase Mr. Laurie left?"  
"Oh there’s really no need to go out of your way, my husband said he'll be glad to drop it off." Laurie panicked waving his hands and shaking his head 'no', desperate to never see Lurch again for as long as he lived. He had visions of Lurch storming into the office, flinging him into the typist pool and battering him over the face with his own briefcase; he could just see the secretaries cheering. Mrs. Henderson took pity, taking the receiver back from the manager.

"Oh no, Sonny shouldn't trouble himself, how about I swing by and pick it up after work? I've got Cain's birthday present in the car anyway! I can't wait to see the birthday boy!" She smiled as the manager dramatically gestured his thanks. "That's great sweetie, I'll see you later then! Goodbye!"

Mrs. Henderson put the receiver down with a smug drop and beamed as the manager jovially kissed her head. "You're a lifesaver! You certainly saved Laurie's life! If we hadn't have gotten out of that policy, I'd have put him through the printing press myself!"  
"That's not funny, Archie." Laurie scoffed.  
"It wasn't a joke."  
"He's got a hell of a lot of alimony to pay and his life insurance is with us, so you'd better let him live." Mrs. Henderson sighed and pursed her lips. "I think the best thing to do is put him at a desk, in the mail room maybe."  
"Not the mail room!" He protested. The mail room was practically the pit. A dark, dingy storage cupboard of a place that old salesmen are put when they've embarrassed the company. An eight hour shift in the mail room was enough to drain your soul out of your body, everyone who worked in there was eerily grey with prison pallor and seemed to have totally lost the ability to laugh.  
"At least Sonny won't find you in the mailroom." Mrs. Henderson smiled. Suddenly it didn't seem so bad.

Mrs. Henderson hopped out of the manager’s seat; smug expression still plastered across her face. She turned as opened the door. “Think of the gas money you’ll save, Laurie.”  
“Don’t tell that freak I’m in the mailroom, Charmaine.” He begged. “Tell him I’m dead or something.”  
The manager leaned forward. “If you want to leave for Alaskan long-haul trucking, Laurie you’ll have my blessing. I’ll write you a reference if you like. I’ll say how uncannily lucky you are and how good you are at skating on thin ice.” The manager chuckled, the secretary laughed, Laurie just stared into space as the door thudded shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nearly done! I know it's silly but I like the image of an average 1970s 30-something year old double date in some gaudy mid century Catskills lounge - except one of them is literally Lurch and the rest in the group don't seem to think he's remotely odd. I got the ages for Lurch and Marilyn from Ted Cassidy and Pat Priest's ages, idk I just think it's kind of funny when Lurch is normalised. XD I have one last epilogue in mind but other than that it's pretty much done. Thank you for reading this nonsense it's been a lot of fun to write!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gomez is one of my favourite characters and I didn't write nearly enough of him, so I thought I'd chuck him in for the last chapter. Thank you for reading! :D

Laurie sat head in hands as he watched the flickering waiting room tv screen of the new year's celebrations. It was impossibly still in the hospital but in the streets outside he could hear the party dancing on into the morning.

He was a little disappointed that his new daughter hadn't been the first baby of 1975, she had been pipped to the post by a set of twins apparently, born at two and twelve minutes past midnight. None of that really mattered however as he chuffed on his pipe. Happy but unable to shake the sense of unease around this baby's birth. Loretta had given the hospital Laurie's surname, but they were yet to be married. She was still trying to divorce her first husband who was digging his heels in over the ownership of the house. There had been a few heated arguments with Loretta's teenage sons who saw their new step-father as the devil. The younger of the boys had gone through Laurie's ties cutting them all to ribbons, the older had poured a gallon of paint thinner over Laurie's Plymouth Valiant. The neighbours were just as hostile, with everyone having their own opinion about Laurie and his new fiancé. All things considered, he was glad he wasn't going to have his picture in the newspaper. It would only end up on a few suburban housewives' dartboards. Had it not been for this new baby he'd be living under a new name in Alaska, free as a polar bear driving a big rig from Fairbanks to Anchorage. Only flying back to New York two weekends out of the month for his allotted time with the older four of his children.

A stern, portly, old midwife, poked her head around the corner of the waiting room door. Peering Laurie down through thick tortoise-shell framed glasses. "Are you waiting for your wife?" She demanded.  
"Ah, no, not exactly." He bristled uncomfortably, self conscious of his ring-less left hand. "I was told my daughter was born about an hour ago, what time could I see her?"  
"Name?" She glanced at the register she was carrying.  
"Laurie."  
"Yes, we've got a Laurie. Eight pounds and two ounces, she's doing fine. Follow me then, Mr. Laurie. There will be no fathers holding the babies until after first feed in the morning, but you're welcome to look through the glass."

She briskly lead him down a corridor and into a gallery room before disappearing back into the vast hospital corridors. A great glass window partitioned an oddly sterile nursery of sleeping babies, organised in alphabetical order of surname. He looked down the rows of cradles. Andrews, Archer, Courtney, Devon, Easton, Hoffman, Jessop, Kennedy, Kirby and finally he found the yet to be named 'Baby' Laurie. If they were puppies in a pound he'd pick that one. She really was the most beautiful, sweet little thing, curled up in her pink knitted shawl like a joey in a pouch. She squirmed and mewled contented, her delicate little peach fingers, opening and closing, her fragile brown hair curled like a dandelion wish under her knitted cap. He was besotted but riddled with guilt. He couldn't possibly begin to wish her away now but he knew she might not have the easiest time, what with being the product of an affair. He hoped the other children on both sides would come to fall in love with her just like he did, but somehow he could tell it would be more complicated than that. For the moment, he could just press his hands to the glass and gaze at her.

As if they were psychically linked, Laurie's worried thoughts seemed to spook his daughter and she began to wriggle more in discontent, building to a cry, thrashing her pink little hands and legs, not strong enough to throw off her covers but loud enough to rival a cold war air raid. Next to his daughter stirred a pair of porcelain doll-like babies, although not in the same cradle, they were identical and petite, deep in a perfect sleep until Laurie's own daughter's cries woke them up.

Laurie looked to the names of the two now hysterical tiny newborns and wished he hadn't. Next to Laurie in the alphabet came Lurch. Mara and Isolde Lurch - Laurie wasn't remotely surprised by the chosen names. Two beautiful little baby girls that couldn't be more than five pounds each. Morticia he gotten her wish and more, Laurie only hoped they'd never end up looking like their father. They fussed and gave a reedy, weak cry as the same midwife that had guided him rushed through the back door of the nursery to attend to the crying babies. Shushing the three girls and stroking their cheeks. Laurie's daughter calmed down the easiest and seemed to drop off almost immediately, but the twins continued to fuss even when picked up and rocked. Eventually after some time, the midwife managed to settle them again, gently placing them back down and tucking them back into their hospital issue pink blankets.

She gave Laurie a look and walked through the dividing doorway between the nursery and gallery. "It's always the fussy babies that have delicate fathers. The twin's dad's a big, huge fella, with a face like Chuck Connors but nerves like violin strings. He's dreadfully worried about the girls being a little early. I tried to tell him that's normal with twins but he just won't stop fretting!" She seemed to be talking more to herself as she walked past in a tired daze. "Just try not to tap the glass, think of them like goldfish. The twins dad's still kicking around the hospital somewhere, trust me, you don't want that fella storming in here in a panic." She said flatly as she left again.

She was right. That spook he had met earlier in the year was the last thing he needed right now. The threat of encountering Lurch again had haunted Laurie. He had spent the last five months hiding in the mail room from him.

"Do you think I'm a little early?" Whispered a smoky voice from a dark far corner. Laurie jumped and turned a the familiar figure of pinstripes and sparking cigars embers. He was holding a hideous bouquet of dried out baby's breath and headless roses. Gomez Addams chucked and gave a look of distrust at his many watches clasping his wrist. "Usually I can average time out without any trouble, but I suppose the new year might have thrown their mechanisms off. Is it past midnight already?"  
"It's 4:45"  
"Well then, happy new year!" Gomez grabbed Laurie's hand in a furious hysterical shake, chewing and twirling his cigar in a deranged expression. He snapped his fingers as he suddenly recognise Laurie and his grip tightened painfully. He held the bouquet in the crook of his arm as he lifted a finger to point, still grinning. "Mr. Laurie I remember you! - the adulterer!"  
Laurie was too tired to be scared, and now very used to not being well liked. He somehow wriggled out of Gomez's python grip, stretching his fingers painfully.  
"Well, not any more." He glanced to his daughter.  
"Oh, you're a different man now, are you? Is one yours?" Gomez asked sincerely.  
"Well yes. The one labelled 'Laurie' - that's why I'm in a maternity ward - at four in the morning on New year's day, Mr. Addams."  
Gomez took a set of opera glasses from his breast pocked and peered through them curiously at Laurie's daughter. "Congratulations! I hope you can change your ways for her! Children need security and selflessness from their parents! Emotional health and stability!" It was an inappropriately on-the-nose thing to say but fair, true and much better than the threat of throwing darts. Laurie awkwardly nodded. "What about you? Have you had another kid?"  
Gomez laughed. "Oh no, my two are more than enough. The pair of them were such toe rags, forever blowing holes in the wall, flooding the basement, melting the electrics -"  
"- Digging tunnels?"  
"Precisely! No Mr. Laurie we had our two young. I'm besides myself with joy to be a godfather again, but no more children, Tish wants to concentrate on her rock carving and I want to commit myself more to the old zen yogi! Good luck to Lurch and his wife, they're a veritable soviet substation of energy to have three little kids at their time in life!"  
"You're here to visit your butler? At four in the morning?"  
"Why yes! Lurch is a lot more than a butler you know - and of course to see the new twins!" Gomez lifted his opera glasses again and grinned. "How beautiful! I do think they're identical. Just think what trickery you can get up to with a double! I've always wanted an identical twin, or did I have one? I'm not sure... I can never decide whether Pancho was imaginary or not..."

Laurie turned again to look into the nursery while Gomez screwed up his face continuing an argument with himself. The twins seemed much calmer in Gomez's presence although he certainly wasn't. He wanted time alone with his new daughter, to think things over before leaving the hospital and facing the world. He supposed Gomez was better than Lurch although it was likely Marilyn was on the same ward as Loretta and their paths were soon to cross. The nurse returned to the nursery, paperwork in hand and sat in the corner of the room scribbling notes. She looked up at Gomez and gave only a polite nod which he returned with a wave.  
"I'm sure your daughter and the twins will be great friends!" Gomez leaned in. "They'll be in the same grade after all!"  
Laurie bristled and tried to change the subject. "Do they even let outside visitors in at four in the morning?"  
"Why yes if you don't mind paying a bit of an entrance fee!" He smiled and raised his voice to call to the nurse behind the glass. "Isn't that right, Rita?" The midwife curtly shushed him and he laughed.  
"You bribed your way into a maternity ward? Couldn't you just wait till visiting hours?"  
"Wait until 6pm? They'll be five times as old as they are now! Children don't stay four hours old for long, you know!"

He had an odd point. Laurie turned back to the daughter he never expected and sighed. He wasn't sure where the emotion was coming from. It was perhaps a potent mix of tiredness, stress and anxiety but he couldn't help but confess his rising woes to this strange man.   
"I feel so guilty, Mr Addams."  
"Well, you aught to. Guilt can be a good thing! You can learn a lot from guilt!"  
Laurie didn't expect that response. He turned, confusion plastered across his face and Gomez flicked his cigar nonchalantly as his black eyes read Laurie's feeble mind.  
"She deserves better." He muttered, eyes growing reluctantly watery.  
"She does!" But she certainly doesn't deserve worse if you're thinking of running off. It's not all about you and your feelings anymore!"  
"But she deserves someone better - a better father."  
"Then be a better father!" Gomez shrugged. "If you have issues old man, you owe it to her to face them! See that nice Dr. Millford, or Dr. Black, or Dr. Mbogo - I couldn't recommend the latter more! Don't make her carry them. Running off won't ease any burden for her, it'll only make a hole - like the hole that my neighbour lost his Impala to!"

Gomez patted his shoulder. This neurotic kook that had bribed his way into a maternity ward at four in the morning on new years day was right. That strange old house with taxidermy swordfishes and shrunken heads hanging from the rafters was proof of how right he was by the way that strange family seemed to genuinely love each other. The children although odd in their pursuits, were precocious, confident, happy and unapologetic in their odd identities. That shocking culture of eccentricity had raised children who were not self conscious about who they were; a near impossible achievement in oppressive conformist suburbia. He looked back to the baby and prayed that she'd never feel self conscious of who she was. He had stacked the odds against her in that regard already but he sincerely hoped that he could make it up to her somehow. Laurie took a deep, teary, shivering breath and smiled at her, vowing to learn from his guilt even if it killed him.

Gomez tapped Laurie's shoulder again and leaned in far too close. "And besides..." He said comfortingly. "If I ever find out that you've skipped town on that little girl, I'll personally track you down like bigfoot, have you flayed and tanned and donate you to the Mutter museum. I'm pretty handy with the old throwing knives you know!" He gave a demented chuckle. He probably wasn't joking.  
Laurie only nodded. "So I've heard, Mr. Addams. Quite right."

**Author's Note:**

> Happy halloween! I've always wanted to try an Addams/munsters crossover and I'm aiming to finish this fic over October. More characters will join as the story goes on. Hope you enjoy!


End file.
